Researchers at the University of Maine (UMaine) built the world’s largest 3-D printer. Then they built a bigger one. They call it the “Factory of the Future 1.0.” Someday, it could print homes for whole neighborhoods.
Two companies teamed up with UMaine researchers to build the printer. The Army Corps of Engineers provided most of the funding. That’s good, because the project had a hefty price tag! It cost several million dollars.
It’s not hard to see why. The printer fills a whole building. It’s four times larger than UMaine’s previous 3-D printer, and it can print objects 96 feet long by 32 feet wide by 18 feet high. That’s bigger than a tennis court! All that printing takes a lot of raw material. The machine can gobble 500 pounds of material—usually thermoplastic—in a single hour.
Its creators have an ambitious goal. They want to print neighborhoods.
The previous 3-D printer could make an entire 600-square-foot house. Unlike most 3-D printers, it didn’t use plastic. Instead, it used wood-fiber and bio-resin (plant-based) materials. These materials are recyclable. You can grind them up and print with them again. (Talk about a remodel!)
But why bother with 3-D printed houses? What’s wrong with good ol’ brick and mortar?
In the United States, many people struggle to find affordable housing. The number of available houses has dropped, and house prices have climbed—along with the percentage of unhoused people on America’s streets. So have construction costs. According to MaineHousing, Maine will need another 80,000 homes over the next six years. But there’s not only a housing shortage—there’s also a shortage of workers to build homes. Where will all these new homes come from?
That’s the problem researchers at UMaine aim to solve.
The new printer can build homes quickly and cheaply. It doesn’t even require a crew of construction workers. The process might even produce less pollution than traditional building.
But it’s not all about affordability. For Habib Dagher, director of UMaine’s Advanced Structures & Composite Center, style matters too. “We wanted to build a house [about which] people would say, ‘Wow, I really want to live there,’” he says.
Dagher and his team want to build even bigger printers in the future. “We’re learning from this to design the next one,” says Dagher.
God gives us gifts so we can better love our neighbors. The researchers at UMaine are loving their neighbors by seeking ways to provide homes. How can you show God’s love to your neighbors today?
Why? New technologies, used well, can help solve old or tricky problems.
