October 3rd was National Manufacturing Day in the USA. What has this to do with software? Everything.

We tend to forget that just about everything we do with software is based on hardware and now our software has the ability to create solid, tangible things. Manufacturing is no longer a support for computing. With 3D printers, our software can produce real products. 

The 3D printer revolution still has a long way to go, but with Arduino on board it is getting closer to its target. The new Arduino Materia 101 is designed to be simple and with its cool blue Arduino logo you can't help but feel that it really is more approachable. 

As you might guess, at its heart is an Arduino Mega and the entire machine is a collaboration between Arduino and Sharebot. At the moment, few hard facts are available. What we do know is that it is a fused filament printer, i.e. it prints melted plastic and its printing area is about 140x100x100 mm, which isn't huge. Resolution is claimed to be 0.06mm in the XY plane and 0.0025 in the Z direction - clearly these are theoretical.

Overall the machine looks a lot like the Sharebot Kiwi-3D and uses the same material and printing area. We will have to wait to see if there are any substantial differences in performance or UI. 

The Materia 101 is expected to cost $800 as a kit and $1000 for the fully-built version. 

Of course, the original 3D printer is the CNC machine tool. These vary in size from a full metal milling machine to a small router. Although not really printers, in the the sense that they work by taking material away from a block rather than depositing it to create the shape, they have the advantage that the range of materials they can work with is much greater - anything from wood to high strength metals. If you want a tough, computer-generated component then a CNC machine is what you need. 

As a demonstration of how CNC works the following video explains how a 3D model of a face was constructed - yes CNC machines can be accurate - from high density foam.

Next the same 3D model was rendered using a three-color powder printer. A powder printer works by "inkjet" printing glue onto a layer of powder. Once the layer is complete, another layer of powder is deposited and the print head once again deposits glue.

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