Made in 3D

When I first decided to enroll in the course, I wasn’t sure what I was going to learn but it sounded cool because this course has to do with 3D printing. I had only two thoughts about 3D printing and they were that 3D printing was recent (last 1-3 years) and that 3D printing was gimmicky in the sense that it printed hollowed pieces connected by lines (to be fair, I saw someone selling these structures on the streets for $2.00). Shortly after starting the course, I realized I was wrong about both, that 3D printing isn’t exactly new because it has been around for a while and that 3D printing can be so much more complex (functioning parts, 3D bio printing, etc). My major in Baruch is Entrepreneurship and I think that by working on SketchUp, I am now able to think a bit more creatively. Being able to create something of my own that is completely customizable allowed me to be more free in that what I could make was only limited by my skill in the actual program. That being said, I kind of hoped that we had a little bit more help with learning about SketchUp and how to control its some times wacky functions because there were a lot of times during the five forms x five materials project where I was confused at what to do to fix my object’s problems to make them printable, have volume, etc. I’m not totally sure what I would like to do with an entrepreneurship major (or what I would be able to do) so I think that I may put this exploration into 3D print design and ideation into use if I ever open a business of my own, especially if I do something in the food business because I could design my own utensils, cutlery, plating, etc and 3D printing is definitely going to something that is going to impact businesses dynamically so I am glad that I was able to learn about it.

In researching my goal which was to find out what it would take to 3D bio print an actual brain, I found out the process that it would take to go about actually 3D bio printing a brain as well as the difficulties that are proving troublesome for researchers that are trying to make organ 3D printing a reality. First, I looked up individual people who were involved in 3D bio printing and found that it was more of an institutional effort towards the actualization of 3D bio printing rather than an individual “mad scientist-esque” effort. I then looked for printed works that would help me understand what is necessary for 3D bio printing an actual brain. I followed this up by looking for exhibitions and seminars that explain 3D bio printing but did not find any strictly speaking but I found videos online that delve deeply into the subject of 3D bio printing and they do a pretty good job of explaining the process, benefits and difficulties of 3D bio printing. Next, I put all my notes together in an attempt to ultimately write a short piece on what it would take to 3D bio print an actual brain. I found out that there were four steps in the process of 3D bio printing a brain and that those four steps are kind of applicable to any 3D printing of a body part/organ. Those steps are to isolate the cells and grow them, to multiply the cells, to assemble the “building blocks of the organ/structure and to ultimately combine them together. We know that the technology is in place for this process but the problem is the materials. Living tissue, living cells and anything living that 3D bio printing works with is a difficulty because they are influenced by the environment and can die very easily thus disrupting the ability to produce a working living organ. I think that my  goal of learning what it would take to 3D bio print an actual brain has been achieved on a basic levels. There are definitely more complex and intricate steps involved in 3D bio printing anything, least of all a brain. However, after learning about the process of 3D bio printing an actual brain, I would like to turn my focuses to the ethics of 3D bio printing a brain and how it could possibly change human philosophy on a fundamental level if an actual living thinking brain is ever 3D bio printed.

The fifth and final step to finding out what it takes to 3D bio print an actual brain was to write a short paper on what I researched. I have found that there are at least four necessary steps that go towards 3D bio printing a brain – or any other body part for that matter. The first step is that depending on what body part (for me, it is the brain), cells need to be taken from that body part, isolated and those cells have to be made to grow. The next step requires that those isolated and grown cells need to be multiplied so that there can be something to put together. Afterwards, it is necessary to use those multiplied cells to assemble muscle units which means creating the parts that are needed for the 3D bio printed structure. The last step is that those assembled muscle units need to be combined into an actual structure through the printing process.

The fourth step for finding out what it takes to 3D bio print an actual brain was to compile the notes that I found while researching the subject and people who are actively exploring the subject of 3D bio printing. I have found that researchers are 3D bio printing living brain tissue to eventually treat brain disorders, that there are people who are already working on steps to make 3D bio printing of functioning organs a real possibility by creating mini 3D structures of organs like the brain and liver that actually work and function like their real life counterparts would. I also found that the hardest part about 3D bio printing is not that the equipment is not in place to handle such an operation but that the materials themselves are the issue. When 3D printing objects that are non-living, it is easy because plastic, metal, wood, etc does not change – it does not die if left out in the open or is affected by the environment. However, living cells that are required for 3D bio printing are subject to dying if not in the optimal environment and is affected by many outside factors that inanimate objects are not affected by. http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/03/tech/innovation/3-d-printing-human-organs/

The third step for me to understand what it would take to 3D bio print an actual brain was to find exhibitions and seminars about 3D bio printing. Unfortunately, I was not able to find any exhibitions or seminars on 3D bio printing but I was able to find videos on the subject and I found that those were pretty close to exhibitions and seminars since they were explorative and explanatory. The videos are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1Q2oLxEOF8 (A relatively recent video on the 3D bio printing of leather and meat. It discusses how the process works but also talks about the effects 3D bio printing leather and meat has on the population),  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d51HyGCVLJk (This video shows the process in which BBC News Researchers try to 3D bio print body parts and it focuses on the difficulties that come with trying to 3D print a body part) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D749wZSlb0 (This video talks generally about 3D bio printing and how cells would need to be arranged during bio printing to be successful).

The second step on my path to figuring out what it would take to 3D bio print an actual brain was to search for printed works that involved the subject of 3D bio printing brains/living matter. Some books that I searched up are Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing and Gene Therapy and Regulation. We have been reading Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing throughout the semester and although it doesn’t focus solely on 3D bio printing, it does have specific in depth chapters for the subject. Gene therapy and Regulation talks a lot more about actual 3D bio printing and has chapters that talk specifically about 3D Cell bio printing for regenerative medicine research and therapies and that goes in hand with what the University of Wollongong and ACE are exploring.

My first step on my schedule of milestones on the path to my goal of finding out what it would take to 3D bio print a organic brain is, to google search people who have already looked into the subject. I have found out that its not so much that there are individual people who are interested and/or looking into the subject but groups of people who are interested in the societal benefits that 3D bio printing would allow us to have. A few of these groups would be Tufts University, University of Wollongong and the ARC Center of Excellence for Electromaterials Sciences (ACES). Tufts University has produced a mini 3D brain that actually functions as a real brain would. The University of Wollongong and the ARC Center of Excellence for Electromaterials Sciences are both studying the production of brain cells and if they can reproduce them for use in treating diseases. These are but a few of many groups that are involved in and active in studying how 3D bio printing, of the brain specifically, works.

What I want to learn: How a brain would be printed.

How will I show I have learned this:

Step 1 – Google people who have already looked into it

Step 2 – Find books on 3D bio printing

Step 3 – Find exhibitions or seminars for 3D bio printing

Step 4 – Compile notes on topic

Step 5 – Write a short paper detailing the challenges of printing a brain

List of Resources:

– Look up data on 3D bio printing

– Call up an institution that focuses on 3D bio printing and visit them

Studio Exercise 1:

When making the building block, I found that it was pretty simple since it really only required about 5 steps (including assigning sizes to the length, width and height). I felt as though the most difficult part was waiting for the final product to come out of the 3D printer and being disappointed when the 3D printer messes up during the process.

The multi-block model was a lot more difficult to build than the single building block because there are more components to it and to add the components together, it would sometimes require rotation which on sketchup is a really tough function to fully grasp and often leads to many periods of frustration. Another reason why the multi-block model was so difficult was because of symmetry, sometimes on sketchup a model’s symmetry would be in your own hands and often it doesn’t turn out quite symmetrical (human error, etc) or takes a long time to reach symmetry.

Studio Exercise 2:

5 Forms x 5 Materials (ppt spreadsheets)

3. Real World Assignment:

The exhibits in MAD NYC Makers were different in that it felt like they were more focused on how the exhibit as a whole looked instead of maybe a meaning behind how it looked. My favorite piece was Fredericks & Mae’s 100 Arrows. This was my favorite piece because it felt really chaotic but beautiful. What I mean is that when I looked at it, it felt like I was standing in a hail or arrows in the middle of a battlefield but the arrows weren’t moving in a downwards motion but rather in a horizontal motion so it looks like a current of arrows/orbit of arrows rather than a rain of arrows. Also, each arrow was hand crafted using different feathers and other materials to make every single arrow different which adds to the beauty of the “current of arrows”. I learned that exhibits or maker pieces are not limited to objects but can be whole environments such as Nick and Julie’s Confetti System. An observation I made was that there were exhibits that were focused on appearance as well as exhibits that had functions. My last observation was that sometimes multitude makes up for lack of complicated materials. This exhibit informs me that there are already people who are making impossible-like things that don’t seem simple to make without 3D printing but by having 3D printing, that list of impossible-like things is getting bigger and more possible.

4. Personal Reflection:

In the course so far, I have learned that nothing is impossible forever. I say this because I never thought that printing 3D objects was possible. Although 3D printing has actually been around for a while, right now is the time where it can really grow and become something that we only used to believe could happen in science fiction and fantasy. For me, the process of crafting a 3D design was easy and difficult. What I mean is that it is really easy to begin a 3D design such as creating a cube on sketchup but it starts getting difficult when you want to customize, refine and make something different than what preset such as vases and cookie cutters. Through the process of making a 3D object, I have learned that a successful piece takes time and lots of thought before even beginning the 3D process. To make a successful 3D object properly reflect your ideas, it is necessary to draw preliminary sketched out on paper as well as setting down dimensions because that helps set up a solid plan for you to follow while making the 3D object. It was challenging for me to properly size my objects but by drawing them out first, I was able to be more precise. Whenever I come across a problem in sketchup, I fiddle around with it until I can come up with a solution and often those solutions work but are unexpected. So I guess the ability I will bring to my group is perseverance to  work out issues and obstacles.

5. Future Vision:

In all of the readings that I have done from Fabricated, the topic that grabs my interest the most would have to be bio printing. Bio printing is so interesting to me because it feels like we as humans are playing as gods. The emergence of bio printing is surprising and hopeful in that there may be a day when 3D bio printing is so advanced that we can 3D print human organs or body parts and that could save many lives if not make those lives easier. There is already experiments in 3D bio printing with human tissue that have been successful and that shows that the first steps towards the aforementioned are already being taken. As much as I am interested in how helpful this technology could be for humanity a a whole, I am also interested in how humans will deal with it if it becomes an issue. What I mean is that 3D bio printing could become dangerous, shady people could print out faulty organs to people who need them, people may have ethical issues with printing out human body parts, etc. how will people deal with or regulate something like 3D bio printing if it ever becomes advanced enough to print functioning human body parts? Will we also be able to print out whole humans and if we are indeed able to, what does that make us? All these aspects of 3D bio printing are important and it will be interesting to see how things unfold.

My name is Vincent. I decided to take this course because the “special topics in entrepreneurship” part of the class description made me feel like I might be missing out on something if I didn’t take this class and I suppose my intuition was right. I have recently decided that I want to go into entrepreneurship but I honestly don’t have a clue as to what I really want to do in terms of entrepreneurship. I hope that this class will give me some insight, some inspiration and some verification that entrepreneurship is or is not right for me.