Ep.4: 3D Printing

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Episode Agenda with Time Stamps:

• 00:22 - Banter: Our first reviews, Black Lives Matter, kidney stone farewell, Josh’s doctorate program.
• 12:20 - Listener Question: What do you think of 3D printing - specifically 3D printing organs?

Credits:

• Cover Art Photo: Mosby Lake - follow this dog on instagram at regular_mo.
• Cover Art Font: Paper Cuts 2 by Empire of Dust (Daniel Werneck) is Public Domain.
• Intro Music: Shortened version of “Sweat Time” by Loyalty Freak Music is licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License.
• Outro Music: Shortened version of “Alethia” by Nihilore is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Transcript

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Intro

Ian 0:03

Hello, everyone and welcome to Yondercast, the show where we do our best to answer your questions. My name is Ian Lake and this week I am joined by the amazing Patrick Leitch and another person who I guess happens to also be here Josh Baltzell.

Josh 0:21

Hi.

Banter: Our first reviews, Black Lives Matter, kidney stone farewell, Josh’s doctorate program.

Ian 0:22

You guys, before we get things going, this is the first episode that we're recording after we actually went live with the show. And so people have heard the show at this point, and I am very excited to tell you that we have reviews on Apple podcasts. We have four, five star reviews on Apple podcasts, and none of them are my mom. So that means that we're really doing something right. I want to read you guys some of the things that people say about our show.

Patrick 0:54

Oh boy.

Ian 0:54

So one user, user likeaustralia89 says this is a fun podcast. That's both entertaining and informative topics are explained in a way that's easy to understand for the whole family. And then user gobowman. 10 out of 10 recommend. This is a fantastic podcast from some really great teachers/guys. The show is super funny and the guys have great chemistry together covers a large range of topics successfully. If you like star talk radio, you'll love this.

Josh 1:24

You go go Bowman.

Ian 1:29

And that gives me another podcast to check out as well, which is cool. we are also coming back from a little bit of a break. We haven't done any recording in a few weeks and we haven't released any episodes in a little while. And as we explained in our, special message, that was the last thing that we released. That's due to, the Black Lives Matter movement and our desire to give ourselves and our listeners some time to really fully engage with that. And really s tart the learning process and start the activism process. So how have you guys been doing with that?

Josh 2:02

I've been really enjoying the volume of YouTube videos that discuss equity-based education. Cause I think that that's something that speaks to all three of us a lot recently. And so it's just been really exciting and I hope that the trend continues that people start putting more focus on how we can make education more equitable from like a cultural perspective.

Patrick 2:24

I do love that. We've actually downloaded a few audio books and since the family has been kind of busy and don't really have time to sit down and actually physically read, we'll actually just put them on as we're doing things around the house. And I know my two year old probably can't understand what's being said, but it's kind of an interesting thing that he'll be growing up in a household where we do have all these social justice issues going on and hopefully he can pick up on some of that throughout it, whether we're buying all inclusive books or listening to podcasts, watching YouTube videos, those are just reflecting ourselves and kind of talking about it as a group.

Josh 3:01

I think one of my favorite parts about doing this research has been having those really difficult conversations with people that don't necessarily want to have those conversations. I have some family members that I know that with, a couple of family members, we've had conversations that went upwards of like six hours. Just talking about things that certain people don't want to hear.

Patrick 3:24

But it's that's impressive. Six hours.

Josh 3:26

Oh yeah. That was a fun conversation.

Ian 3:29

Yeah, I've been, I've been doing some. Some learning and some growing myself, I purchased book white fragility, which is one of the books that we recommended in our special message. And it's, one of the books on anti-racism and, and just on understanding white supremacy and white privilege and I'm about 35% through reading it or something. And it's a really, really excellent read. I think it's definitely worthwhile. it's been very eyeopening. And I also listened to the 16 19 podcast. I listened to the whole thing in like two days. There's only six episodes and they're about 35 to 40 minutes each. And it's really excellent. It's not what I expected. I expected it to be the way that they describe it is it sounds like it's the story of the first ship that arrived, carrying slaves in the Americas and there's actually very little about that. And they can say right at the beginning of the show that they don't have a lot of information about that. So it's not really show about that specific historical event, but it's an excellent show, just about many, many aspects of racism throughout the centuries and ways that it has affected black people that I didn't previously know about or didn't expect. There's some really, really eyeopening stuff in there too. So for our listeners, I think that this is probably going to be something that we come back to and revisit often. And since we're all engaging in it, it'll be stuff that we talk about fairly regularly. Other things that we seem to talk about fairly regularly include my kidney stones. And I have,

Patrick 5:10

Oh, no. Is there another one?

Ian 5:11

I have news on that front. I said goodbye to my kidney stone two days ago. I finally had my followup appointment and they had to take my kidney stone to the lab to test it so I said goodbye, it's kind of embarrassing to admit, but, you know, it was kind of hard to say goodbye.

Josh 5:30

So they let you keep it, but then they asked for it back.

Ian 5:33

Well, so gosh, not to get into like too much information, but you have to catch it. You have to try and catch it, uh, which I succeeded in doing and then you have to take it in to get tested. and just with what's going on in, medicine right now, it took until now for me to be brought in for that followup appointment.

Josh 5:51

I have important questions?

Ian 5:54

Yes. What's your important question?

Josh 5:56

What Did you use to catch it?

Ian 5:58

they give you. Basically like a little strainer

Patrick 6:02

I was going to say, I was thinking like a colander from the kitchen.

Josh 6:05

was just going to say like what size colander?

Ian 6:08

it's it's kinda like that. It's kinda like that, but a finer mesh.

Patrick 6:12

That's awesome.

Ian 6:13

I asked it jokingly, but I kind of meant it when the technician was taking it from me. I said, When are you going to mail this back to me? She did not think I was joking at first. I had to, I had to clarify that I was mostly joking.

Patrick 6:30

you have to pay the postage there?

Ian 6:32

I hope that the bills would include postage. Otherwise oh boy.

Josh 6:40

And is this like an envelope or?

Ian 6:43

No, you guys really want to know a lot more about this than I was expecting. No, they had me put it in the little plastic container, like a pill box.

Josh 6:50

Did you have to mark "fragile"?

Ian 6:52

No, that thing is not fragile. That thing is, it's a rock. It's definitely not fragile. It's a sharp rock. let's move on and talk about something else. What else, what else has been going on in your guys's lives?

Patrick 7:07

I've been digging a lot in my backyard moving a retaining wall. So I've also been engaging with sharp rocks.

Ian 7:14

yeah, you sent us some pictures. That looks really nice.

Patrick 7:17

Oh, there's so much dirt. So if you guys need like, just literally dirt for anything, just let me know. I'll find a way to get it to you.

Ian 7:26

you're clearing out space for a fire pit. Is that right?

Patrick 7:28

Yeah, it should be like a fire pit and a little seating area. Just something to add a little value to the house too. I've been thinking about it for like the four years that we've been here and I just never quite got the go ahead from the better half. So I think this summer, we just had the time and the sort of energy. I just worked for six hours the first day and took a day off and then four hours and then took a day off today was like two hours.

Ian 7:54

Yeah. If you keep that, it'll be 30 minutes in two days and then like 10 minutes, two days after that,

Patrick 8:00

Yeah, I'm getting old. Not as spry I used to be.

Ian 8:04

I mean, that is hard work for anybody. look forward to that turning out and then someday recording a podcast around the fireplace in your backyard. Anything else exciting going on in either of your lives?

Josh 8:18

I started my classes. That's not terribly interesting though. I don't know. I find them interesting. Usually when I start talking about my classes, people's eyes glaze over and they just nod their head approvingly like good for you for finding that lame thing. Cool.

Ian 8:33

Josh for our listeners who might not know what you're doing. Can you tell them what you're taking classes for and what you're working towards?

Josh 8:40

yeah, so I'm getting a degree in neuroeducation it's the whole concept is we take language neuroscience and cognitive psychology and kind of mush it together into one field. So that way we can better understand how students learn. So right now we're studying how the mind and the brain are the same thing. There's this misconception that they're two separate things and it's called the duality, point of view. But we're trying to focus on the fact that the mind and the brain are actually the same thing. just the mind is our language interpretation of stimuli.

Ian 9:17

and at the end of this process, correct me if I'm wrong, but you will have a PhD. Is that correct?

Josh 9:22

Yes.

Ian 9:24

Wow. So someday I will get to introduce you as my mediocre friend, Dr. Josh Baltzell.

Josh 9:32

less mediocre.

Patrick 9:35

is the, this is like maybe going too deep, but it's like the brain versus the mind kind of like the body versus the soul. Is that the idea that they're trying to move away from that conception or misconception rather?

Josh 9:50

Well, it depends on who you're talking to. Cause there are some people that still firmly believe that the mind and the brain are two completely separate things. so yeah, it's, it's kind of a philosophy, but yeah, I think that that's a good metaphor. The body soul mind, brain idea.

Patrick 10:05

I like it. See, I would find that very interesting. I know you say people's eyes glaze over, but I think a lot of our listeners would probably find that discussion. Very interesting too

Josh 10:14

Oh, yeah. It's, it's pretty exciting.

Ian 10:16

That might have to, that might have to come back on the show at some point in a little bit more, more depth. That does sound really interesting.

Josh 10:22

Yeah. Maybe later I can blow your guys's minds with, time perception. Oh no.

Patrick 10:27

know.

Ian 10:30

Uh, well, in the interest of time perception, do you guys want to talk about our listener question for this week? Oh, no. Did I lose you

Josh 10:40

I think Ian froze.

Patrick 10:42

I wish I could take a screenshot because he's got a really good smile on

Ian 10:46

Everything is frozen.

Josh 10:48

probably talking right now and

Ian 10:49

Where are you? Josh? Patrick?

Patrick 10:53

I wonder if he's just going to pop back at some point, just in mid discussion.

Josh 10:57

And that's how I reabsorbed my kidney stone.

Ian 11:03

We are just everyone knows. We just had our first, technical issues, where our recording session froze. So we are coming back after figuring that out. so, hello everyone. There was probably no interruption for you, but there definitely was for us. Patrick, what were you saying?

Patrick 11:18

So this is kind of looping back to the kidney stone question.

Ian 11:21

Okay.

Josh 11:24

We're not over it.

Patrick 11:25

yeah, that was so when, when we went down, it went back to that and we weren't, we still had questions. So does that mean you're kind of like an oyster and you made a Pearl?

Ian 11:35

Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Patrick 11:40

It's literally like homemade jewelry.

Josh 11:42

My mom has a rock polisher.

Patrick 11:44

Oh, that's a really good idea. Throw it in the tumbler

Ian 11:48

I wonder if anyone has done that before.

Josh 11:50

Oh. You know, someone has, there are people grosser than us in the world.

Patrick 11:57

anyways. Okay. I just had to clear that up. It was, it was burning a hole in my brain or minder one of those.

Ian 12:03

All right. I'm happy to field more questions about my kidney stones, but is that it for now?

Patrick 12:08

for now.

Ian 12:09

Okay. I'm glad that those questions aren't burning a hole in your brain anymore. Cause I know what that feels like. Cause the kidney stone burned a hole through my body. So.

Listener Question: What do you think of 3D printing - specifically 3D printing organs?

Ian 12:20

All right. You guys, let's talk about our listener question for this week from our listener drew who asks us, "What do you think about 3D printing, specifically the concept of 3D printing human organs?" So I'm going to take this one. I've done quite a bit of research on this, and I just want to see if either of you, before I get into it, want to explain what 3D printing is.

Josh 12:46

Oh,

Ian 12:47

Actually I'm going to ask both of you to just kind of tell me, how do you think 3D printing works?

Josh 12:52

so you have a box and the box has a little injector needle, and it's kind of like drawing pictures, but instead of drawing pictures, it's making things. And whatever the ink is, the ink is usually actually like some kind of stuff I'm getting super technical. I hope that you guys can keep up with me and that stuff is used to make the object.

Ian 13:20

Dr Baltzell indeed. Patrick, do you have anything you want to add to that?

Patrick 13:27

that. That was a good one. I was thinking like, I guess my mind went like a, like a tattoo gun, but in three dimensions and the ink is like plastic, so it's a little bit thicker and it's sort of liquid to start and then it kind of sets. And you kind of input a little code of where that needle wants to go. And it kind of does it in layers or whatnot, but that I like the things in the stuff version now. Cause I really don't know

Josh 13:50

stuffs and things.

Patrick 13:52

things and stuffs.

Josh 13:54

And for Organs it's just Organ juice.

Patrick 13:56

Yeah.

Ian 13:57

Right. Of course. So you guys are actually really on the right track. What you're describing is. The most common and most widely used and most widely known type of three D printing, it's called fused deposition modeling or extrusion printing. And I'm going to talk to you a little bit more about what that is and, how it can work. and then we're going to talk about some of the other types of three D printing that you may have not heard about. I'm going to kind of go through like four different types of three D printing and how they function differently and, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. And it's it, it will get very cool. And then we'll talk about kind of like the craziest stuff that people are doing with three D printing and the crazy stuff that they think they're going to be able to do in the future. So. I'll try to be as brief as I can because I really enjoyed researching this topic. So you're talking about fused deposition modeling, which is basically a box Josh. It's a box and there's kind of a little needle. It's called the nozzle and. There is a spool of plastic that you feed into it. And you can use lots of different types of plastics, depending on what machine you have, an our kind of stuff Stuff exactly. And what the machine does is it will feed that spool of plastic into the nozzle and the nozzle will melt that plastic and. Deposit it on a flat surface and it does it layer by layer. So it kind of builds these really thin layers. And as it builds layer on top of layer on top of layer, it starts to form a three dimensional structure. it's kinda like a hot glue gun, actually. You know how you feed that like solid glue in the back and then it heats it up and liquid glue comes out the front it's like that, except it's plastic.

Josh 15:52

I love hot glue guns.

Ian 15:54

You would love three D printing then Josh. And so. This is all done automatically by a computer. It's not like you're not like manually. They actually do have like three D printing pens that you can do it manually and stuff, which are really cool. But generally it's done by a computer where you create a three dimensional model on the computer and then the printer figures out how to section that into really thin layers and layer them on top of one another and build a three D structure and. So that's the most common way that three D printing is managed or is accomplished. And this is also the most widespread technology, partly because there's been some crazy price drops in this technology in the last few years, to the point where the cheapest three D printer that uses this technology that I could find is $99. You can get a three D printer for a hundred bucks and it's pretty basic, but you can get there's a lot of models, like good ones that are highly rated that people enjoy for between like 170 and $300. So these types of machines are at the consumer price point at this point, like it is something that people could have in their own homes. and you can get a really nice one, like a lot of the models that are intended for product designers or classrooms, you know, things that are going to get a lot more use are usually at the like $2,000 mark. And then they kind of progressively go up from there, depending on what fit, size and resolution and capabilities you want from it. So, the price of three D printers is pretty impressive at this point. And that's what most people have encountered when it comes to three D printing, because that is main type of three D printing that's out there that people are doing. But there's some other technologies that exist right now, that as I was learning about them, open my eyes to what 3d printing can really accomplish, one of the limitations to that type of printing is that what you're printing has to have a flat bottom, or at least has to have a flat side, cause it has to sit on a surface and it has to not fall over while you're printing it. And you also can't really print things with long structures or really spindly structures because it's melted plastic. So as you're printing that, it's just going to like droop over and fall, and it's not going to work or it's going to break off during the process or something. So if you want to print something that has any sort of feature, like a really thin section or, you know, long spikes that come off of it, that you don't want to bend, or you want to print something without any flat sides, you need a dual extruder printer. Which functions exactly like the standard FDM printers, except that it can print with two different materials. And so you could obviously print something with like two different colors of materials, or you can print something with a hard plastic and a substance like PVA polyvinyl alcohol which is a water soluble material. And what that allows you to do is it allows you to print in dissolvable support structures. So if you want it to print something, for example, like a sphere that doesn't have any flat sides, you could do that by basically surrounding that sphear with printed support structure. And then all you have to do is dunk that in water afterwards, and the polyvinyl alcohol will dissolve away from it. And you'll be left with the structure in the middle.

Josh 19:23

It's the perfect murder weapon.

Ian 19:25

Wow. Josh you're actually right, but Holy cow, that's scary. Um, yeah, so, I didn't think about that as being one of its potentials that you can print untraceable. Did structures. but you can print things without flat sides. You can print things with much finer details. and here's what I think is really cool. You can print stuff with moving parts. So like if something that you're printing has gears in it, for instance, you just have to print like a really thin layer of that dissolvable material between the moving parts. And then as long as water can get in there and dissolve that material away, you could print in a single run without having to assemble it afterwards, you could print something with like moving parts.

Josh 20:12

That's incredible.

Ian 20:13

you can already kind of like see the potential of that, right? So. that style of printing called material extrusion, which is basically just where a material is pushed through a nozzle and used to build something can be applied to not just plastic, but almost any other material that you can think of. But we're going to come back to that. So here's a few other ways that three D printers work, there are 3D printers out there that are called Vat Polymerization printers, which is more commonly called resin printing. And what these do is they form a solid object out of a pool of liquid. So it's a, it's a material called resin that when exposed to certain ultraviolet light, hardens into a solid and. So the way that these work is basically they kind of print upside down, especially compared to the other ones that we were just describing because they, they will lower a stage into a pool of liquid and then use a laser, a UV laser to trace the layer that they want to build on that stage, and then raise the stage up and do the same thing for the next layer and keep going like that. So if you watch a time lapse video of what this looks like. It looks like this machine is just pulling a solid object out of a pool of liquid. It's very cool.

Patrick 21:39

If you put it in reverse, as it looked like it's destroying the entire thing.

Ian 21:43

Yeah, it would look like it's like melting it. So. So this technology, even though it's not as well known is actually the other type of three D printing that is available at the consumer level. they're more expensive than the basic, three D printers, but you can get good resin printer for as little as $210. a lot of them are around the $500 mark and there's pros and cons to this approach. Because it's using a L usually a laser or light as the thing that's drawing the image. These types of printers can usually accomplish a lot higher resolution and a lot more detail and a lot more smooth surfaces on the outside of the print. And so you can get nicer objects with it generally. But it hasn't caught on as much because, well, first of all, it's more expensive and resin is more expensive than plastic spools of material that feed into the other type of printer. But also the resin is really toxic. So you're dealing with a toxic liquid, which means you've got to wear eye protection. You've got to wear gloves. It's a liquid that has a tendency to spill or have droplets that go everywhere. So you've got this like mess of toxic material and also you have to cure the Prints after you're done with them. So when you take them off the machine, you have to cure them either by using an ultraviolet light source or by using more chemicals that you kind of stir it around into finally solidify everything and to kind of seal it all up. That's another step in the process. It's another expense. And so for those reasons, generally consumer level users, don't prefer resin printers. Although some people do,

Patrick 23:23

Yeah, I'm sure us being chemistry, teachers that just straight up gives me anxiety thinking that there's people out there working with that stuff that might not know those things.

Josh 23:32

They're not wearing gloves. They're tasting it. I made a spoon.

Ian 23:38

Oh, yeah. Big people, people printing their own dining utensils out of this toxic plastic material. I'm sure. I'm sure people have done it.

Patrick 23:47

Very cool though.

Ian 23:48

I also didn't mention that these processes produce toxic fumes. you know, you're melting plastics, especially resin, liquid resin gives off toxic fumes. And so you've got to have good ventilation if you're going to do three D printing. So those are the three D printing mainstays. Those are the technologies that have really blown up, but there are two other technologies that I think are worth mentioning. The first is material jetting, which is a, it's a process that works exactly like an inkjet printer. In fact, they say it's built on inkjet technology. So it's basically a machine that looks like a printer and it has a square printing head, like, you'd see on an inkjet printer. And it just goes across and deposits an entire layer of material at once. And it's kind of like a marriage of the other two because it's building the thing from the ground up, layer by layer but the material that it's using is a liquid that it. Deposits in little droplets and then cures with a UV light as it goes across. So it's kind of like, it's kind of like a mixture between the other two,

Patrick 24:55

that one sounds fun.

Ian 24:56

Yeah. Yeah. So it's really cool. And it's really fast. but it has some limitations. Those structures are generally not quite as strong as the ones that are built with the other technologies that I already talked about. So it's really for people who are prototyping a lot. And I should mention for people who are out there, who are going to get mad at me for, you know, not mentioning every possibility, there are variations on all of these technologies and there's like millions of different materials for all of these technologies, including, brands and companies that are producing their own materials, with, you know, patented chemistry behind them. In fact, I thought about buying a three D printer a couple of months ago because I found a plan online for three D printing face masks The reason I didn't go forward with it is because you really kind of need this special material that was sold out. But the material was made by a company. I think they're called Copper 3D if I'm remembering correctly. And they produce a plastic, that's kind of a, a more flexible plastic and it has copper ions in it. And it's specifically for things like facemasks because copper has anti-microbial and antifungal and antiviral properties, copper ions, disrupt cell membranes and disrupt DNA and stuff like that. So that it's really good at killing things like viruses. So building a face mask out of it during a viral pandemic makes a lot of sense.

Josh 26:27

that's incredible.

Patrick 26:29

You could also three D print, a replica of your kidney stone.

Ian 26:32

Who says I haven't Patrick. I mean, they, they, they're not going to give it back to me. So I got to make a keepsake somehow. I'm going to do it in like five times the size though.

Josh 26:42

But claimed that that's the actual size.

Ian 26:45

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Patrick 26:46

kidney stones look larger than they appear.

Ian 26:49

They feel larger than they appear.

Josh 26:52

I've heard that.

Ian 26:53

It's true. okay. I have one more type of three D printing to tell you guys about, I apologize for geeking out so hard, but this is my favorite. I saved my favorite for last, The last type of three D printing is called Powder Bed Fusion.

Patrick 27:07

it's got the best name too.

Ian 27:09

Oh, it does. And it's super cool. it's an incredible technology because basically what this is, is a machine that lays down a thin flat layer of powder, and then a laser shines down on that powder in a specific pattern and it melts that powder and causes it to bind together. And then the machine lowers the stage a little bit lays another really thin layer of powder on top of what was already there. And then the laser carves, the next layer and makes it melt and bind together and bind to the layer beneath it. And it just keeps doing this and keeps, binding these layers together until it completes the object And the reason why I think that this is the coolest one is because number one, There is no need for support structures, because basically the object is printed in an environment of unused powder. So the surrounding powder acts like the support. So you can kind of print whatever you want. And there's no need to print additional supports because the environment supports the structure as it's being printed. Also the unused powder that surrounds the whole object can just be recycled and like put back in the machine and it can use it for the next print.

Josh 28:22

That was my question.

Ian 28:24

Yeah. Yeah. When you do the support structure stuff, you know, you're wasting a lot of material just on the supports. but with powder-based ones, you're not really wasting any material. The structures that are made are a lot stronger You can do this with not just plastic, you can do it with lots of different kinds of plastic, but you can also do this with metal stainless steel, aluminum titanium. And so now we're talking about like three D printing, actual real objects that can hold force and, you know, we can print hardware that way It's also the, most of the attrical. Because at the end of the whole print is basically hidden in this pool of powder. And then at the end of the print, the machine raises the bed and like all the powder just falls away from the thing that you printed and it just kind of merges out of this bed of powder. And then you have to brush away the extra powder like you're an archeologist, you know, it's the most theatrical one, too.

Patrick 29:18

I like to envision the Imperial death march playing as they're revealing, whatever it was like. Bum bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, just the dust falling away.

Ian 29:29

Oh, you bet that if, this existed, when the original Star Wars was made that Darth Vader's helmet would have emerged from a bed of powder or something.

Patrick 29:38

Yeah. That ones, the whole metal thing is really cool. I think it's got some kind of interesting implications of what you could do with it, but there's yeah, that's really sweet.

Josh 29:48

amazing. That one's my favorite too.

Ian 29:51

alright, Patrick, is it your favorite?

Patrick 29:54

Well, I where my mind was going. I love the idea of blacksmithing and working metal. Like I took a class on it. My wife got me a class for it, and it was like really, really fun. And no matter how hard I try to get a forge in our house is probably just not going to happen. But that would give me a, probably better fire safety way to do the things I want to do. I would love to make replicas of items from games, graphic novels or anything else and make real life sized replicas of them. kind of like they're three D printing for miniatures for like maybe D and D or something else like that. This is just another. Extension of that a little bit more, I guess, meatier version of it. I don't know. I don't really know how you would say it. Just like something you could hold that feels real. Cause sometimes when you hold like a plastic, three D printed object, you can kind of tell it was three D printed, whereas a three D printed object that's metal might feel like, man, did you actually make this? Obviously me crafting it by hand versus it being printed by a machine is very different, but that's where my mind is going. And that's why I would think it would for sure be my favorite is I can finally make those things I've wanted to in a fraction of the time and probably a little bit safer of a way. I'm sure. I'm sure my wife would also agree that it's a little bit safer than having a forge in our garage or in our backyard.

Ian 31:12

Oh, for sure. Well, Patrick, since you mentioned blacksmithing, I wasn't going to bring this up, but by, since you mentioned it. There is another type of three D printing that kind of lends itself to forging. So there is a, process called Binder Jetting, which is another type of three D printing.

Josh 31:32

That's the best name so far.

Ian 31:36

And what this does, is it basically acts just like the powder fusion process that I just described where layers of powder are laid down, but instead of a laser exciting the powder and making it melt and fuse a nozzle just goes along and deposits glue within the powder and causes it to bind together. And you can do this with all sorts of stuff. but the most common, I think most common way that this is used is with sand where they literally just lay it little layers of sand and glue the layers together and how this is most often used to make metal casts.

Patrick 32:14

Sweet.

Ian 32:15

three D print, a sand metal cast, and then you pour molten metal into it, let it solidify, and then just chip away the sand on the outside. And you have a forged metal object.

Patrick 32:28

It's like a perfect blending of both of those things. Dude. it would save a lot of like the shaping process. Like you could literally make a piece that's already halfway there and then work it a forge and blacksmithing and that sort of thing

Josh 32:43

that one still sounds like a lot more work if you want to Carol Baskin someone. Like give me dissolvable knife or give me nothing.

Patrick 32:50

Still going with the polyvinyl alcohol,

Ian 32:53

Oh, my gosh. If Carol Baskin has a three D printer,

Josh 32:56

We're all doomed.

Ian 32:59

I wonder if everyone anyone's ever asked her that.

Patrick 33:02

I'd be afraid to.

Ian 33:03

Alright, so we have talked about all the different families of three D printing. And like I said, there's variation within all of those but those are the fundamental groupings of the different types of three D printing. So now what I kind of want to go back and just. Discuss with you guys is what I mentioned quite a long time ago now, which is novel uses for extrusion printing, which is where there's a machine that's just laying down layers of something, you know, the most popular type of three D printing, which is usually plastic, but there are people who are doing this with all sorts of stuff. So, for example, there are people who have scaled it up to an industrial level and are doing things like three D printing entire boats which is pretty crazy or closer to my heart. three D printing, a whole homes instead of using plastic, the extruder is pushing out concrete. And it can go around and like lay down foundations and walls just progressively from the bottom up.

Josh 34:11

Why are we not using that?

Ian 34:14

Well, there actually are quite a few companies who are working on that, and it's not really, at this point, it's not intended to three D print, their McMansion, you know, like a giant house or anything. it's really being geared towards trying to home the homeless basically, right now there's companies that can print a house for about $10,000 and they can do it in a day to two days. And they think that they can bring that cost. Down to less than $4,000. And so the idea is that there's something like over one and a half billion people in the world who don't have adequate shelter who are homeless or who live in makeshift construction, or live in non-permanent construction. And so if you can, produce on a mass scale and, very quickly these homes that are actual real buildings with solid walls, with locking doors, with insulation, with, real foundations and real waterproof roofing and everything like that. you could change a lot of lives and it could do so pretty quickly. And, when you look at these homes, you're kind of like, Oh man, that's a small house, but it's nice. they can print a 640 square foot house that has a nice outdoor patio and dedicated bathroom and a dedicated kitchen and a dedicated small, study area as well as a larger living space inside it. And requires a lot less human input. Cause basically humans just need to be there to like introduce other structural component as the machine is going along, like introduce the framing of the door. And put the roof on the top and, you know, run the electrical wiring, but machine does the bulk of the work. And my favorite is this Italian company. I think they're called wasp W.A.S.P., who are not using concrete. They're actually trying to three D print homes out of waste from rice production, as well as just raw earth, just like dirt. cause rice, I think rice is the staple, the diet staple for, well over half the world's population, and so there's a lot of unused rice waste out there. they're trying to take that fibrous material and mix it with a little bit of binding agent and some dirt and kind of create like a, a concrete, like substance, and print homes out of that. so that's super environmentally friendly. They can locally source that stuff. They don't have to like ship it in or anything like that. so that's even cooler people are doing amazing things at a large scale. There's even a company who is three D printing rockets to send a space.

Josh 36:55

Oh, I don't trust that.

Ian 36:57

I know. Right. But I mean, when you see these things, it looks like a real rocket. And they've done a lot of testing and they seem to be holding up really well. And when we're talking about space exploration and space becoming the new frontier and, having people colonize other planets or the moon or something like that, or they think they can cut down on rocket production costs by like 80% with three D printing

Josh 37:24

I still get terrified of the idea of somebody being like, Hey, here's your rocket? And I'm like, Oh, is it good? They're like, it's the cheapest. It was 80% cheaper than that guy's rocket.

Ian 37:34

Yeah, no one put this thing together. A machine just printed it in, like,

Josh 37:40

Given the number of times that my printer jams, I just don't know.

Ian 37:46

so yeah, I'm right there with you, Josh. I don't know if I would trust my life to something like that, but people are working on it and they think it could be game changing for the space industry. Speaking of space my mind was just kind of going crazy about where's three D printing going to go in the future. And I was thinking that three D printing is probably gonna play a really large role in colonizing other planets. Because if we can three D print, a structure out of, just dirt and stuff on the earth, we could probably three D print structures, partly out of the material that we find on other planets. It wouldn't have to pack the whole structure. You just have to pack the materials needed to make the structure. And maybe not even all of those. And I was also thinking like, when you're thinking about sending a person to space, they're not going to be able to run to the hardware store if they need something. So up until this point, they've probably had to pack all sorts of redundant, stuff with the astronauts, just in case if this panel breaks, you've got to have a replacement. So we've got to pack one of those. Or if these screws get threaded, you need to have replacement screws. But what if an astronaut could just print whatever they needed

Patrick 38:57

Like on demand.

Ian 38:58

Just on demand. you wouldn't have to pack any of that extra hardware with them. They could just print it

Patrick 39:04

So you're like floating off into space and you're like, Oh shoot. I'm not tethered to anything. You three D print, a hammer really quick and throw it the other direction and you're safe.

Josh 39:12

calm down Thor.

Ian 39:14

Throw it the other direction. And you're safe?

Patrick 39:16

Yeah. If you're floating off into space a direction, you don't want to go. You got to throw the object the other direction to go backwards. So you could like literally save yourself with a little mini three D printer.

Josh 39:26

You've ruined Marvel movies for me.

Ian 39:28

I'm imagining an astronaut in space, just like printing baseballs, just like throwing them into space, trying to like propel themselves back to their ship.

Patrick 39:39

Some alien planet just sees like this plastic baseball hit their plan and be like, well, what the.

Ian 39:44

Oh, man. I'm trying to keep this as brief as I can. Do you want to hear some other cool examples?

Josh 39:49

Yes.

Ian 39:50

Okay. Yes, we are getting there next at one more quick example, because I think this one's really cool. there is a group of people who are using three D printing to three D print replicas of artwork, both actual replicas of statues, as well as three-dimensional renderings of two dimensional art specifically for blind people to access. So you scan the Mona Lisa and you print a three dimensional rendering of it. And now it's something that a blind person can actually feel and, gain an appreciation for.

Josh 40:27

I would 100% invest in that.

Ian 40:29

Isn't that cool. I'd never heard of that until I found it in my research and I thought that was just amazing food. Josh. Here it is. obviously humans are going to bring it back to food, right? And so there's people who are printing intricate edible statues out of sugar. There's people who are printing really intricate things out of chocolate. there are people who are using it to make really intricate frosting decorations on cakes and things like that. On Amazon, you can go on Amazon and spend about $260 to buy the pancake bot, which is a pancake three D printer. And this thing is actually pretty cool. It's not technically 3d because it's just printing a flat pancake, but it's using the same principle of an extruder that's, you know, depositing that pancake batter on a griddle. And it can actually not just make something in any shape that you want. It will time different parts of it to achieve different shading, because like the stuff that it puts down first is going to cook the longest and get the darkest. And the stuff that lays down last is going to get the lightest. it will kind of lay things down in order to not just make a pancake the shape that you want it, but that has like an image on it that's shaded based on cooking time.

Josh 41:44

No, I'm kidding.

Ian 41:48

Last time I looked there was only one available and I think it was a used one. So, I don't know, maybe it didn't take off, but it will after this podcast airs.

Josh 41:57

It is still on there only one left in stock.

Ian 42:05

It's so unnecessary, but at the same time it's so ingenious and I appreciate that someone has produced that thing, you know, The other thing that I thought was kind of interesting food wise was meat.

Josh 42:15

No, I don't approve of this.

Ian 42:18

this, this can be done in a couple of different ways. you could actually grow meat cells in vitro in a lab and then print those cells into something that looks like a steak or a hamburger, and then cook it. And you would have a steak or a hamburger that is actually made out of that animal cell. Like you could, you could make it out of cow cells and it would actually be beef. It just wouldn't be beef that came from a cow. It would be beef cells that were grown in a lab.

Josh 42:49

You don't want to go to a restaurant and you ask what is this? And the waiter goes it's beef.

Ian 42:54

It's technically beef, but it didn't come from a cow or you could make something that looks like a steak or like a hamburger, but you could print it out a vegetable protein.

Josh 43:04

Oh, I like that better.

Ian 43:05

I like the idea of that option better Josh. But when you see these things, the technology has a long way to go because these three D printed vegetable steaks don't look like steak. They're about a 16th of an inch thick. They're like green. It was actually a great video where, they print one of these and then they cook it in a pan and they give it to someone to eat, and I'm sure that they wanted them to be like, Whoa, it tastes just like beef and the person takes a bite and like, they don't even swallow it. They just look at the camera and go, mm. So I think that that has some potential, you know I think that we definitely need to be replacing meat proteins with other sources of protein. It's a really important part in the future of our food industry. but I personally don't find those veggie steaks very appealing at this point.

Josh 44:05

Called bif it's not beef. It's bif.

Ian 44:08

Okay. So now after a long conversation, we finally arrived at the actual question that was asked, which is what do we think about three D printing organs? And what do we think about three D printing in medicine? So three D printing has been used to try and print organs and tissues, but I think it's important to note that it actually right now represents a lot more flexibility and a lot more potential in other medical applications. For example, printing specialized instruments that are designed specifically to work on the patient that they're used for, or three D printing personally tailored implants, or personally tailored prosthetic limbs that that's already being done right now. so three D printing has the potential to take individualized medicine or the idea of individualized medicine to kind of the next level. And one of the coolest examples of that, that I found was, surgeons who will use three D scan data, likes data from a three D MRI to reproduce physical models of a patient's body parts before surgery.

Patrick 45:14

wow. I can almost practice.

Ian 45:16

Yeah, exactly. So that they can actually pick up and feel and even practice on the patient's specific organs, before doing the surgery. And that can include things like the size and the placement and the shape of tumors or injuries or other unique features.

Patrick 45:33

that's really cool.

Ian 45:35

what that enables surgeons to do is perform surgeries a lot more quickly with a lot more preparation. And so one of the things that's linked to infection rates and complications is time spent on the operating table. So if you can cut down time, spend on the operating table, and if you can make the procedure way more exact, and well-informed, there's the likelihood of, surgeries resulting in a lot less infections and complications.

Patrick 46:03

that's insanely awesome.

Ian 46:04

And then of course, like drew asked so many minutes ago, you can print with living cells and this is kinda like printing a steak out of living cells. but you could actually print with skin tissue, or even bone cells or organ cells or blood vessels, or maybe even multiple of those things at the same time.

Josh 46:27

And I'm assuming that because you can actually pick the cells that are being used to three D print, you can make it so that it would resolve the whole issue of the body rejecting the organ.

Ian 46:38

Exactly. Exactly. That's that's one of the most promising things about it is that you could print a person, a replacement body part, or a replacement organ out of their own cells. And if there's some sort of genetic issue with their cells that created the problem that necessitates a transplant in the first place, you could fix that problem with something like CRISPR or gene editing system. callback there. So you're exactly right. This would, not only either drastically reduce, or maybe even eliminate the whole phenomenon of the Organ waitlist, but it may also address the issue of compatibility, because the, statistic is really sad but on average, 18 people every day in the United States die waiting for a transplant. And that could either just be because of availability or it could be that they're waiting for the right match. And so if you could address that, I mean that literally save thousands of lives a year.

Patrick 47:42

That's incredible. Especially even things like exterior, like ears, I've seen instances of Burn victims who have lost a nose or an ear, so they can have those things that are three D printed and, attach those almost seamlessly since cartilage and three D printed material are kind of similar to one another, I don't know the right. And I don't know the, the research behind how they're doing with like the true authenticity of that skin, but I mean, I'm sure it's pretty comparable.

Ian 48:12

mean, I think that we are years, if not decades away from actually printing, replacement body parts for people out of, real human tissue, there may be some things like you said, like, An ear, a nose that is just kind of like skin and cartilage or skin and bone that, that maybe we could get to sooner than something like a heart or, you know, an internal organ. we're probably pretty far away from that point. But until that time three D printing does represent a way to do medical testing a new and novel way. right now, if we want to, test a pharmaceutical product, we have to either test on animals or we have to test it on humans. And it usually goes in that order there's usually animal testing and then human clinical trials. But if you could three D print something that was mostly like a human organ or mostly like a human skin tissue type, you could test products on that, which might decrease our reliance on animal testing, which can be problematic. And it might, increase our success in human clinical trials. Cause it gives a human alternative before actually testing it on living human beings. but eventually we will be able to, to print things like you're talking about Patrick, like ears and, in the weirdest proof of concept that I've ever seen, people have already done this. So an artist worked with bioprinting and printed Van Gogh's missing ear. Cause very famously Vincent van Gogh cut off his own ear. And so I don't know what kind of statement they were trying to make, but they printed Vincent van Gogh's missing year and they didn't do it out of plastic. They did it out of human cells and they didn't just do it out of any human cells. They did it out of human cells from his great grandson.

Josh 50:06

Oh, no, no. We've gone too far. We need to go back.

Ian 50:11

So very strange proof of concept, but you can actually print something like an ear.

Josh 50:17

I'm putting this on the record right now. If my great, great grandchildren do anything like that, you're cut out of the will.

Ian 50:25

don't want them to reprint you.

Josh 50:26

No, no, I do not want my body reprinted in any shape or form. Like what did great, great grand Pappy look like?

Ian 50:35

Actually that is a really good transition into maybe talking about what do you think are some of the possible drawbacks to the concept of three D printing human body parts? And I didn't even think about that one, Josh, but the concept of printing someone else's body part without their consent.

Josh 50:55

Yeah, no about No. Yeah. See, this is my favorite part. About every time we, as the human race, discover something, we immediately have to have these ethical conversations. And it's so crazy because it's like, there is no right answer. I mean, we just talked about all of the amazing things that printing body parts does for us as a society. But there's always going to be something creepy, masochistic, dissolve the evidence kind of minded person who's gonna come in and everybody's going to say, why would you do that?

Ian 51:32

well, I was thinking like, as soon as that technology becomes not just about. printing organs for people who need transplants or, printing skin grafts for people who had a major injury or something like that. As soon as it becomes a situation where you could upgrade your organs, that's w and it's cool, but it's where we kind of get into that, that thing that you were just talking about, how people are going to use it for nefarious purposes. Like, if you could replace your heart and lungs with, lab grown, heart and lungs that increase your athletic capabilities or something

Josh 52:06

Yeah. Or you three D print Paul Rudd's face and Rob a bank.

Ian 52:12

With your dissolvable weapons,

Josh 52:14

Yes.

Ian 52:19

okay. Well, we need to, I think wrap up soon, Patrick needs to go pick up his children from daycare. so real fast before we wrap up, The future. Where do you think three D printing can go in the future?

Patrick 52:33

outer space.

Josh 52:34

Patrick took it to where we could physically go.

Ian 52:40

I mean, honestly, that's, that's one of the things that I put down too. It's like three D printing in space. I think it's going to happen. In fact, it has already happened there is, I think a three D printer, on a space station and they've technically three D printed something in space, all right, well, Patrick is out everybody, but Josh and I are going to wrap up the rest of the show. one thing that I was thinking that's going to happen in the future. This process that they are calling in situ printing, which in this case In situ would mean printing directly at the site of injury. So in a medical application, if someone came in with a broken bone, if you could print cells to fuse that bone back together, That'd be pretty amazing. Or if someone came in with a, horrible burn or a horrible, laceration or something like that, you could print skin cells directly onto the site of the injury.

Josh 53:36

I, I like that. I think I prefer that.

Ian 53:40

Then like printing something in a lab

Josh 53:41

Yeah. And then putting it into me, I'm just curious how you would be able to actually go about that mechanism. Cause you'd still have to open the person up, but yeah, it would be just be directly attached. I'm processing it. That's amazing.

Ian 53:55

it's an idea. That's out there. I don't think that it's been done even experimentally. I didn't come across any evidence of that. I hope I'm not wrong about that, but, it's an idea that's out there. So maybe, you know, in a hundred years, that's where we're at medically, who knows. Is there anything else you want to say, Josh?

Josh 54:14

Oh, no, I'm good. I loved this.

Ian 54:16

Okay, cool..

Outro

Ian 54:18

All right. So I think that's going to wrap it up for this episode of Yondercast. Thank you all so much for listening. Please subscribe to the show and review us on Apple podcasts if you have a moment. If you have a question that you would like us to answer on the show, just fill out the survey that you'll find linked in our show notes. And if you would like to contact us, just shoot us an email at yondercast@gmail.com. Thanks everybody. Until next time, goodbye.

Josh 54:42

bye.