An affordable, self-correcting, multi-material 3D printing platform

Research on 3D printing (also called additive manufacturing) has increased the accessibility of the technology to the general public. Today you can even buy your own 3D printer, although at a steep price—the cost of these systems has hindered their wide-scale use. Recently, an interdisciplinary team at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has partly addressed this limitation by building a relatively cheap printer that can handle multiple materials.

From the beginning, the team was interested in a 3D printing platform that relied on commercial, off-the-shelf parts. Over the past three years, they’ve developed an impressive multi-material 3D printing platform that costs around $7,000—over an order of magnitude cheaper than other multi-material systems.

The printer is 1.2m x 0.6m x 1m (w, l, h), and its frame is made of aluminum attached to UV-blocking acrylic sheets. An exhaust duct is connected to the rear of the panel where two electric fans are used to expel gases and particulates.