3D BioPrinting: Printing Parts for Bodies

Toolmaking goes back at least 2.5 million years when homo habilis first struck flakes from small stones to fashion crude ‘choppers’ for cutting plants and meat. However, the invention of toolmaking did not cause a revolution overnight. It took almost a million years for the chopper to develop into the bifacial ‘hand-axe’, with flakes chipped from both faces to leave a sharper edge. Throughout history, humans have developed new tools to solve problems. They have used new tools to create better tools and so on. From those crude choppers 2.6 million years ago humans have made tools, to make tools to make the device you are reading this ebook on today. A 3D printer is a new kind of tool capable of transforming the user (who might not have any training or experience in engineering or craftsmanship) into a master-crafts person. It enables the thought-to-thing process to be achieved in an extraordinarily short period of time. If the printer is paired with a 3D scanner, the user can replicate the shape of almost any object. Alternatively, using 3D drawings, the user can create structures which are not possible by any other means. A 3D printer can, quite literally, turn your imagination into reality.