3D Printing  

Fabricated, the new book by Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman provides readers with practical and imaginative insights to the question "how will 3D printing technologies change my life?" Based on hundreds of hours of research and dozens of interviews with experts from a broad range of industries, Fabricated offers readers an informative, engaging and fast-paced introduction to 3D printing now and in the future.

The first chapter of Hod Lipson and Melba Kurman's Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing is set in the future with the family kitchen incorporating a 3D printer outfitted with food cartridges cooks up breakfast, while across the street a giant printing nozzle oozes out the concrete foundation of a new home. Investigators look into the  bioprinting black market, where counterfeiters sell sloppily printed organs for transplants.

The scenario seems like science fiction, but Lipson and Kurman make a compelling case that some version of it is not far off.

3D printing creates objects by building up successive layers of material, is poised to shake up everything from manufacturing to medicine according to the authors.

Based on hundreds of hours of research and dozens of interviews with experts from a broad range of industries, Fabricated offers readers an informative, engaging and fast-paced introduction to 3D printing now and in the future. Written by two leading experts on 3D printing, Fabricated is the first book to address both the practical and imaginative insights to the question “how will this technology change my life?”

Lipson, a robotics engineer at Cornell University, and technology analyst Kurman explore how these machines are already wending their way into many facets of society, including food, fashion and education.


From hipsters in Brooklyn to the R&D labs of giant companies, people are using 3D printing to make clothing, airplane parts and prosthetics. While today the fraction of objects that are 3D printed is small compared with traditionally manufactured goods, the market is growing exponentially.
Fabricated takes the reader onto a rich and fulfilling journey that explores how 3D printing is poised to impact nearly every part of our lives.

• -Meet pioneering teachers, small businesses, artists, surgeons and researchers who are applying 3D printing and innovative design software to expand the limits of what they do 

• -Learn the basics of 3D printing technologies and design software as explained in lucid, non-technical language

• -Learn about weird and wonderful applications of 3D printing such as printing food, dental crowns and someday… replacement heart valves, organs and joints

• -Gain insight into a whole new level of intellectual property challenges as 3D printers enable people to make copies -- even “edit” -- commercial products and works of art

• -If you have a taste for science fiction will glimpse a not-so-distant 3D printed future that’s taking shape as leading researchers explore ways to 3D print smart materials and ready-made robots

“3D printing is already shaking our age-old notions of what can and can’t be made,” said Lipson. “But what we’ve seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg. The next episode of 3D printing will involve printing entirely new kinds of materials. Eventually we will print complete products -- circuits, motors, and batteries already included. At that point, all bets are off.”