NEWS POST: Breakthrough In 3D-Printing? MIT Unveils Device Molding 10 Materials At Once

© Pichi Chuang / Reuters

A group of MIT scientists says they have developed the world’s first 3D-printer capable of making ready-to-use objects from 10 different materials at once. The new device, supplied with powerful software, boasts nearly human-free operation.

A research team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has devised what they call a better, cheaper and more user-friendly 3D-printer – MultiFab. The name is due to the unusually high number of materials that it can simultaneously utilize in the manufacturing process – other existing multi-printers are limited to only three at once.

In their study, presented at the August 9-13 SIGGRAPH 2015 conference, the researchers stressed that MultiFab is also much cheaper, while providing a “better” quality of product.  The invention also requires significantly less human intervention than traditional 3-D printers, thanks to 3D-scanning software called “computer vision” that the team developed for the device.

The study has been published in the proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2015, as well as in the MIT CSAIL papers.

 “A big part of the ability to reduce the cost is the 3-D scanning module,” Javier Ramos, an MIT CSAIL engineer and one of the co-authors of the study said, as quoted by Wired.
“More expensive printers have this mechanical system that sweeps every layer and makes sure it’s flat and properly laid out. We don’t need those extreme mechanical tolerances for this mechanism, given that we use this machine vision system, which is non-contact. It scans and corrects the layer, so we don’t need these very expensive mechanical components,” he added.

“The scanner we developed solves a few high-level problems, which are very high resolution, being able to scan a large area quickly, and then being able to scan materials that are transparent or have some translucency. Those are historically very hard materials to scan,” Ramos said.

A special bonus promised by the developers is easy multi-part printing. According to the MIT team, it will be possible to insert specific components – including sophisticated parts such as sensors and circuits – right into the printer. The machine would then incorporate them into the final product by recognizing the parts and continuing to print around them.
MultiFab is a complex system consisting of a central computer, 3D-scanners, and the printer itself. The computer constantly receives 3D-scans from a contactless ‘machine vision’ scanner with a resolution of 40 microns, or less than half the width of a human hair.
The machine compares each printed layer with the scans and detects errors, generating what the researchers call “correction mask.” This software technology frees users from the need to make all the corrections themselves. It also allows the printer to function without expensive mechanical systems that are traditionally installed in such devices to help the user do the fine-tuning.

“Right now, 3D printers are focused on printing form and objects for prototype, but the Holy Grail would be to print out things that are fully functional right out of the printer, combining multiple materials with many properties,” Ramos said as quoted by the IBTimes.

“With MultiFab, we integrate these two worlds of traditional manufacturing with 3D printing, and by putting them together, we can make a whole range of new objects that we are not currently able to make today,” he added.

The original software combined with the use of low-cost off-the-shelf components in development allowed MultiFab to come in at a relatively ‘cheap’ US$7,000 price tag. Potentially comparable analogues cost up to US$250,000, the MIT paper said.

The scientists managed to produce a wide range of objects, from optical and LED lenses and fabrics to fiber optics bundles and complex meta-materials. They also created a plastic holder for a metal razor blade and a perfectly-sized case printed around a smartphone, which had been put directly into the printer.

However, the device has its limitations. It is rather slow: printing a small model of a multicolor tire with MultiFab took almost a day and a half. Additionally, the scanner used in MultiFab still has problems with scanning certain types of surfaces such as mirrored finishes.

The team plans to continue their studies and aims to create complex functioning objects containing motors and actuators. The scientists hope their printer will be able to create advanced electronics and even robots in the future. MultiFab could offer new possibilities in electronics, medical imaging, micro-sensing, and telecommunications, they believe.

As for 3D-printing enthusiasts, designers, and small enterprises, the scientists say they will be able to go somewhere to print their models as easily as they go to a print shop to make photocopies on a Xerox machine – in the future.

“Picture someone who sells electric wine-openers, but doesn’t have US$7,000 to buy a printer like this. In the future they could walk into a FedEx with a design and print out batches of their finished product at a reasonable price. For me, a practical use like that would be the ultimate dream,” Ramos said in the press-release.
Originally published in RT.com USA 

KENNETH’S KREATIVITY KONFETTI: Creativity & Innovation – What Has Nigeria’s Chronic Electricity Shortage Got To Do With Creativity and Innovation

By Kenneth Nwabudike Okafor

The blog posts on Nigeria’s perennial chronic electricity shortages and blackouts generated lots of buzz. 

In case you missed the posts see here and here.

Nigerians poured out their frustrations in mails and Nigeria in diaspora who had not visited recently or got news from home were shocked at the levels of the problems particularly with the NIPP projects which were supposed to be bridging the electricity shortages. Friends of the blog who were not Nigerians confessed they did not properly weight the problems.

The posts from several sources: NAIJAGRAPHITTI BLOG research, PREMIUM TIMES Editorial on Nigeria’s electricity challenges & the APC as well as an investigative report from The National, a leading national newspaper.

Perhaps what generated the most buzz was the idea of creating an innovation prize/grant on NIGERIA’S ELECTRIC POWER CHALLENGE (possible name?), open to all eligible people to apply in order to spur inventors, engineers and conceptualists to seize hold of the opportunity of this national malaise to create machines, inventions and concepts which can help overcome the power problems.

LET ME ASSURE YOU THAT I BELIEVE IN THIS POSSIBILITY.

I had at some point in the last four years I was involved with a community-based electric power project at management level. The project which was funded and supported by two European donor bodies and a multinational oil company in Nigeria and other stakeholders was based on the notion of utilizing qualitative non-associated gas from oil extraction operations to power microturbines which would then generate power. The community in question was then to set up an electricity distribution company, create an electric power distribution network and collect fees for electricity distributed from residents. I was not involved with the project to its logical conclusion though so I am uncertain of its present status. But this is just one example of the possibilities and the potentials.

I KNOW WE CAN COME UP WITH SEVERAL OTHERS VARIETIES OF FEASIBLE OPTIONS.

What has electricity got to do with a blog on CREATIVITY and INNOVATION? PLENTY APPARENTLY.

Let me explain.

NAIJAGRAPHITTI aims to promotion rising creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship in Nigeria. Now can you think of a better way to push this three core aims in one single project than pitching for ideas to help overcome Nigeria’s electricity headache?

Let me refer to what Consultancy Africa Intelligence wrote about Nigeria recently:

On a single day in early April 2014, Nigeria’s GDP for 2013 was revised upward by 89% to US$ 510 billion as a result of a much-anticipated rebasing of the economy from 1990 to 2010. Rebasing, a typical event in the statistical life of economies, involves inflation adjustments as well as accounting for economic and industrial changes. Nigeria’s rebasing acknowledges the role of the sizeable telecommunications and services industries that have developed in the last two decades as well as that of the informal sector. In addition, rebasing corrects impossible earlier assumptions, for example, that three quarters of the Nigerian labour force is employed in agriculture.

While, clearly, little of significance in Nigeria’s real economy changed on the day the rebasing took effect, the psychological impact of Nigeria becoming Africa’s largest economy is significant. (Italics added) 

One of the primary reasons why there was little change in Nigeria’s real economy on the day the rebasing took effect include the fact that Nigeria’s effort at generating enough electricity to power industrialization and manufacturing which would help diversify the economy is far below optimal levels.

Some countries take electricity for granted but Nigeria cannot.  There are tonnes of reports from the World Bank, African Development Bank, Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria) and the several other research bodies who present strong proof that without sorting out the power shortages Nigeria can truly not grow and diversify her economy in a meaningful way.

In essence, Nigeria’s perennial chronic electricity problem is one issue which requires creative and innovative solutions to overcome. And at NAIJAGRAPHITTI we are more than willing to encourage those willing to take up the challenge, to make a push for every positive possibilities.

It is worth the try! 

NEWS POST: The Rise of Work-Doping — Olga Khazan

The drug modafinil was recently found to enhance cognition in healthy people. Should you take it to get a raise?

ArtFamily / O.Bellini / Shutterstock / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic

By Olga Khazan

If you could take a pill that will make you better at your job, with few or no negative consequences, would you do it?

In a meta-analysis recently published in European Neuropsychopharmacology, researchers from the University of Oxford and Harvard Medical School concluded that a drug called modafinil, which is typically used to treat sleep disorders, is a cognitive enhancer. Essentially, it can help normal people think better.

Out of all cognitive processes, modafinil was found to improve decision-making and planning the most in the 24 studies the authors reviewed. Some of the studies also showed gains in flexible thinking, combining information, or coping with novelty. The drug didn’t seem to influence creativity either way.

“What emerged was that the longer and the more complex the task, ... the more consistently modafinil showed cognitive benefits,” said Anna-Katharine Brem, a neuropsychologist at Oxford and one of the paper’s authors, in an email.

Surprisingly, the authors found no safety concerns in the data, though they caution that most of the studies were done in controlled environments and only looked at the effects of a single dose.

Modafinil is one of an arsenal of drugs, which includes Adderall, Ritalin, and Concerta, that are increasingly used “off-label" by college students and adults seeking greater productivity. Just 1.5 percent of adults aged 26 to 34 were taking ADHD medications in 2008, but that number had almost doubled to 2.8 percent in 2013, as FiveThirtyEightpoints out. Though these drugs treat real medical conditions—ADHD, in Adderall’s case; narcolepsy, in modafinil’s—many of the people who take them don’t have those conditions.

Adderall and modafinil are different chemically, but their effects on cognition are similar, according to some psychiatrists. Adderall, or amphetamine, works by boosting the brain’s levels of norepinephrine and dopamine, two chemicals that are responsible for concentration and alertness.

Scientists are less sure how modafinil works. One pathway is by stimulating the release of histamine, which produces a sensation of wakefulness. (People with allergies may be familiar with histamine because many allergy drugs are antihistamines. Just as Benadryl dampens histamine and puts you to sleep, modafinil boosts it and wakes you up.) But modafinil also works on other neurotransmitter systems in the brain, and the resulting effect is one of allowing users to perform complex cognitive tasks more effectively.

These drugs can have negative health consequences, especially at large doses. The number of ER visits associated with the non-medical use of stimulants among young adults tripled between 2005 and 2011, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Some research has shown that the long-term use of modafinil can affect sleep patterns. In rare cases and at high doses, stimulants like Adderall have been shown to induce psychosis.

Still, some psychiatrists say the health risks of cognitive enhancers are overstated. Millions of adults take these drugs. Not all of them have ADHD or sleep disorders. And yet, investment bankers and corporate lawyers aren’t dropping dead at their desks.

Very few adults “are going to have a horrible effect from using these medicines,” James McGough, a clinical psychiatrist at UCLA, told me. “They're safe.”

The side effects, he says, are no worse than having one too many coffees—jitteriness and stomach aches. According to him, people taking Adderall or modafinil at therapeutic doses don’t get addicted, in the sense that stopping their use doesn’t cause a painful withdrawal.

Adderall and modafinil are about equal when it comes to both their performance-enhancing capacity and side effects, McGough told me. Ruairidh Battleday, one of the authors of the modafinil paper, said the side effects and abuse potential of amphetamine seem worse to him than those of modafinil.

The paper hints at a coming debate over the ethics of smart drugs. Currently, people require psychiatric diagnoses in order to be prescribed any of these pills. But if these medicines are ultimately found to be safe, and they work for almost everyone, should anyone be able to take them?

And if modafinil does become more widespread, where does it end? Will we soon be locked in a productivity arms race, pumping out late-night memos with one hand while Googling for the latest smart-drug advancement with the other? Some sports organizations, for what it’s worth, already ban the use of these drugs without an ADHD diagnosis for the same reasons they ban steroids and other performance enhancers. Will employer drug tests soon screen for off-label modafinil use? Or on the contrary, will CEOs welcome the rise of extra-sharp workers who never need sleep?

These are not hypothetical questions. Between technological enhancers like holographic computers and pharmacological ones like modafinil, more and more products are coming to market that will give well-heeled, busy consumers the means to become even more so. As Battleday says, “more agents for neuro-enhancement are undoubtedly on their way.”

Little is known about the long-term risks of pharmaceutical nootropics. What’s more, cognitive enhancement falls beyond the scope of medicine. The FDA doesn’t prioritize approving drugs for healthy people who want to become superheroes. Similarly, doctors aren’t allowed to prescribe medication to people who aren’t sick. “It's cheating, by our current standards,” McGough says.

But if white-collar workers are pounding spreadsheets for 16 hours a day—as they reportedlyare at companies like Amazon—those standards are bound to be questioned sooner rather than later.

Originally published in The Atlantic