Welding, Joining and Additive Manufacturing International Conference 2015

3D Printers – machines that can automatically fabricate arbitrarily-shaped parts, layer by layer, from almost any material – have evolved over the last three decades from limited and expensive prototyping equipment in the hands of few, to small-scale commodity production tools available to almost anyone. It’s been broadly recognized that this burgeoning industrial revolution will transform almost every industry, and every aspect of our lives. But where will this technology go next? This talk will describe the underlying disruptive future of 3D printing. We will demonstrate new materials and new AI design tools that will ultimately allow us to move from fabricating passive parts to printing active, integrated systems, including electronics, actuators and sensors. Will we be able to print a robot that will walk out the printer, batteries included?