A couple of short videos of cool stuff

[thewayne]

A 3-D printed BRIDGE in Amsterdam made of 4.5 tons of stainless steel and was welded by robots. Definitely something that I want to see and photograph extensively if I ever make it over there!

https://mashable.com/video/amsterdam-3d-printed-bridge-worlds-first


The podiums at the recently concluded Tokyo Olympics? Made entirely out of recycled plastic! I think that's wonderful. Cardboard bedframes and recycled plastic podiums!

https://mashable.com/video/tokyo-olympics-recycled-podium


Sadly, Mashable's video code doesn't embed well into DW and apparently they're not on YouTube. Well, they may be, but I'm not going to spend the time looking.

Comments

[motodraconis]

That bridge is so cool! Ironic that digital technology could lead to more organic looking designs. Fingers crossed.

[thewayne]

All according to the creativity of the artist behind the modeling software, eh?!  Frank Lloyd Wright had some amazing designs for his time, but he was a lousy engineer/contractor.  My dad was a industrial plumber for his working life, and every time he was going to begin a new construction project he had to work over the blueprints to fix all of the problems the architects built-in.

[motodraconis]

Well, that was your dad's job and his specialism. I studied Architecture for my first degree, and that did not include an extra 3 years studying engineering, or a 3 year apprenticeship in plumbing or how to wire electrics. These are specialisms in their own right and take time to learn. That's why big projects require teams of specialists. You can of course design buildings that do not require these extra professionals, but such buildings tend to be more basic and off the peg.

[silveradept]

More digital fabircation and the use of recycled and recyclable materials. These are good things, although it still feels like we're at the novelty stage of building projects like these, rather than settling into the part where we start mass-producing the things. A thing the videos don't talk about is what the timelines are on constructing the objects. The home 3D printer device can take a day or more for particularly large projects using plastic, so I wonder if the bigger devices also have timeline troubles.

[thewayne]

Yeah, the video was more a "gee whiz!" than any sort of detail.  I would have liked a lot more information on the project myself.  Still, very interesting thing!