by Ken San Nicolas

Guam - One of the newest craze to hit the tech world is the emergence of self-replicating rapid prototype machines, or repraps. More commonly known as "3D printers", these devices extract plastic or acrylic onto a hotplate layer after layer until it creates a durable three-dimensional object.

USS Frank Cable sailor Adam Herring built his own 3D printer in his garage. He was gracious enough to explain in more detail this growing industry as well as its benefits to our world. "You can use it to print gears, or practical things, toys for kids, chess pieces - all kinds of fun things," he said.

3D printers can print almost anything that you can create using a variety of 3D modeling software, but if you are just looking for something to print, you can find a deep library of blueprints online at websites like Thingiverse.com.

The self-replicating nature of the device attracts many people to the technology, and the amount of interest in the field has helped to develop new designs and styles to improve the accuracy of these devices. Herring suggests that the ideal way to get started is if you have a friend who can build the parts for you and help guide you along the way, however, if that is not an option, kits are readily available online at sites like reprap.org.

3D printers are quickly becoming industry standard for a variety of fields as the way it manufactures its products is significantly different from that of traditional manufacturing methods. "It's an additive process instead of a subtractive one. You can make some fairly complicated designs that would be really difficult to do with the conventional means of manufacturing," said Herring.

In fact, the technology has advanced so quickly that it has already been applied to the medical field. Bioprinters have been able to reproduce items as small as microscopic tissue and as big as fully functional bioceramic lower jaw replicas!

Interested in the technology but don't know where to start? Herring suggests the following. "I really recommend that you go to reprap.org, read up on the open source project and consider building yourself a home-made 3D printer!" he said.

You can learn more about Herring and 3D printing. as well as a variety of other inventions at his site at FabberForge.com.

SEE THE INTRO VIDEO TO ADAM HERRING'S 3D PRINTER