Today's 3D printing technologies lack three important characteristics that have limited its application in manufacturing: speed, size and industrial materials. We propose a new technique of printing objects suspended in 3-dimensional space, within a gel-like medium, allowing full-scale furniture to be printed in a matter of minutes. This process also allows us to print with real-world, industrial, materials like rubber, foam, plastics or any other liquid based medium.

Why it matters:
3D printing hasn’t taken off as a mainstream manufacturing process for three main reasons: 1) it’s too slow compared to conventional processes like injection molding, casting, milling, etc. 2) it’s limited by scale – although it’s good for creating small components, it’s not designed to produce large scale objects 3) the materials are typically low-quality, with no comparison to industrial materials. The new 3D printing method addresses all of these limitations: it is incredibly fast, designed for large scale products (you can print an entire piece of furniture or other large product) and uses real-world materials like rubber, foam or plastics (not just prototyping materials).

What You Need to Know About Rapid Liquid Printing:
Rapid Liquid Printing is perhaps the most advanced form of 3D printing today...

• Speed: Whereas typical 3d printing requires layer by layer creation, rapid liquid printing allows you to print in 3d space, yielding production that is orders of magnitude faster than traditional 3d printing.

• Scale: Nearly no limit to scale.

• Quality: You can print with high-quality materials (e.g. industrial-grade rubber, foams, plastics or many other liquid materials).

The Future of Product Production:
By breaking the three constraints of traditional 3D printing technology, we are exploring a future where large-scale, high-quality products can be produced quickly -- and customers can have unprecedented freedom to customize and personalize their products. This has great implications for customers who increasingly wish to be co-designers in the creation of their own products.

Collaboration:
Self-Assembly Lab, MIT
Christophe Guberan
Steelcase

Self-Assembly Lab Team: 
Kate Hajash, Bjorn Sparrman, Schendy Kernizan, Jared Laucks & Skylar Tibbits

2017