Tag: 3d printers

‘Spider robot’ promises to build entire houses in less than 24 hours

A spider-shaped construction robot named Charlotte is being developed in Sydney to 3D print a full-size house in roughly a day. Developers say the machine can autonomously form structural walls for about a 2,150-square-foot home using locally sourced materials.

Instead of cement and bricks delivered by truck, Charlotte compacts sand, soil, and clean waste into layered walls on-site. Researchers argue that this single-machine approach removes long supply chains and many high-carbon steps.

Charlotte, the construction robot

Charlotte is a mobile, legged system that pairs robotics with additive manufacturing, building objects layer by layer with a printer.

The prototype shown in Sydney is not a finished product, but its architecture offers a clear view of where construction automation is heading.

The work was led by Clyde Webster, founding director at Crest Robotics in Sydney. His work centers on agile field robots for construction tasks that are hard, repetitive, or risky. Momentum comes from the housing crunch and a push to cut carbon. 

“The building materials that we use today – even a simple brick has so many processes involved and some of them very – very carbon-intensive,” said Dr. Jan Golembiewski, co-founder of Earthbuilt Technology.

From soil to structure

Crest describes an undercarriage-mounted system that gathers sand, earth, and crushed brick, binds the mix in textiles, and then compacts it into successive layers. 

At the core is extrusion – pushing a material through a nozzle to form layers. That lets a robot produce continuous courses without mortar joints, guided by digital plans.

“It will work at the speed of over 100 bricklayers,” said Dr. Golembiewski. The team stresses speed as much as simplicity. 

Range of motion matters, too, since legs can step over uneven ground where wheeled rigs bog down. A compact, folding frame also makes transport easier, which is essential for remote sites.

Charlotte robots can cut carbon

Buildings use a lot of energy and materials. A UN Environment Programme report notes that in 2022 the sector accounted for 37 percent of energy- and process-related carbon dioxide emissions.

Cutting the most carbon-heavy steps in early stages can have outsized effects later. That is where embodied carbon, the total emissions from making and moving materials, becomes a key metric for builders and regulators.

Charlotte’s creators claim their method avoids cement entirely while turning clean waste into durable walls. If performance and safety data hold up, that would cut both cost and emissions on the same job.

There is a workforce angle as well. Automation that handles repetitive, high-risk tasks could reduce injuries while letting smaller crews do more skilled work.

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FBI’s Patel gave New Zealand officials 3D-printed guns illegal to possess under local laws

On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country’s police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press.

The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of display stands Patel presented to at least three senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand.

Pistols are tightly restricted weapons under New Zealand law and possessing one requires an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. Law enforcement agencies didn’t specify whether the officials who met with Patel held such permits, but they couldn’t have legally kept the gifts if they didn’t.

It wasn’t clear what permissions Patel had sought to bring the weapons into the country. A spokesperson for Patel told the AP Tuesday that the FBI would not comment.

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Making the World Freer with Homemade Guns

Recently, while touting gun seizures in a city that has some of the most authoritarian gun laws in the United States, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch lamented, “the number of illegal guns that we’ve seen used in New York City has exploded since 3D technology has come about.” She’s not alone. Homemade guns are increasingly sophisticated and available almost everywhere. That’s a good thing.

Americans, Armed and Scary

American dedication to privately owned weapons alarms observers from more restrictive countries—much to the amusement of many Americans, it should be noted, whose ancestors fled those places in search of greater freedom and found it, in part, in the ability to arm themselves and to generally flip the bird to government. That means that from the foundation of the U.S., privately owned weapons and their protection by the Second Amendment have had a strong ideological component. Now, innovators around the world are embracing private arms as expressions of liberty and creating simple designs that can be built in home workshops with commonly available tools and parts.

Critics argue that 3D-printed DIY firearms and their enthusiasts are spreading libertarianism around the world. Let’s hope they’re right.

Summarizing events at June’s MoneroKon conference in Prague, an annual meeting devoted to “privacy-enhancing technologies and distributed systems,” security expert Zoltán Füredi described a presentation by the pseudonymous Zé Carioca, designer of the recently unveiled Urutau, a 9mm select-fire firearm designed to be constructed with a 3D printer and components purchased at any hardware store. Rather than focus on his creation, Zé Carioca instead championed 3D-printed firearms as companions to cryptocurrency in challenging the power and reach of governments.

“His speech blurred the lines between technology, ideology, and extreme libertarian politics,” commented Füredi. He added of the speakers’ message, “Just as the freedom to transact (via cryptocurrency) is now seen as a fundamental human right, so too should be the right to bear arms—worldwide.”

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As crisis grows at U.S. airports, feds are buying replacement parts on eBay or 3D printing them

America’s air traffic control system is blinking red with warning after a midair collision, several harrowing outages, and a staffing shortage. Now Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is adding to the worries by revealing the Federal Aviation Administration is resorting to using eBay and 3D printers to replace parts for antiquated computer systems. 

The secretary told the the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday that the technology holding together American airports is so outdated, the federal government does not have reliable suppliers that can replace vital components.

“We do try to buy replacement parts on eBay for this really old equipment,” Duffy told the senators. “Sometimes, we can’t even buy it on eBay, so we’re trying to use 3D printing to craft replacement parts for the system that we use.”

Duffy first drew attention to this ongoing issue last week in an interview with CBS News. He noted the FAA turned to eBay because “we can’t buy parts for new” for the aging equipment. 

Because of the worrying state of the nation’s airports, Duffy announced earlier this month an ambitious three-year plan to revamp air traffic control systems with a focus on modernizing communications technology, surveillance systems, and digitization. To do this, the administration will seek “upfront appropriations” from Congress to fund the much-needed updates. 

You can read the Transportation Department’s three-year plan below: 

Brand New Air Traffic Control System Plan.pdf

The plan emphasizes fast-paced modernization was necessary because risks increased the longer the U.S. remained reliant on the aging systems, especially at a time when air traffic is increasing and spaceflight is making a comeback. 

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The 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Is Testing 3D-Printed Drones

In case the display of the drone threat over states like New York and New Jersey wasn’t enough to cause concern, the famous 101st Airborne (Air Assault) “Screaming Eagles” is partnering with the 5th Special Forces Group (SFG) and Eaglewerx Applied Tactical Innovation Center at Fort Campbell, KY to field and test 3D-printed drones as a fraction of the cost of existing small unmanned systems (sUAS).

The testing will take place during Operation Lethal Eagle, a division level training exercise and will include 100 units and ground control consoles. Lethal Eagle is a 21-day exercise designed to test prototypes or Army initiatives among other tasks.

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New York Proposes Doing Background Checks on Anyone Buying a 3D Printer

The New York legislature is in the early stages of considering a bill that would require people buying certain kinds of 3D printers to pass a background check.

State Assembly Bill A2228 says that “any retailer of a three-dimensional printer sold in this state which is capable of printing a firearm, or any components of a firearm, is required and authorized to request and receive criminal history information.”

The state would then have 15 days to root through the buyer’s information, look for weapons charges or other disqualifying criminal history, and make a decision. This would, in effect, mean that anyone buying a 3D printer capable of printing any piece of a firearm (which is quite a few 3D printers) would have to pass a criminal background check.

We live in a world where anyone with access to some 3D printers, the right digital documents, and some practical knowledge can print and assemble an untraceable handgun. It’s likely that Luigi Mangione, the assassin of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, used a 3D-printed Glock-style handgun to hit his target. Governments across the world have struggled with how to handle the problem of widespread, home-printed, unregistered firearms spreading across the planet on demand.

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NY State Bill Would Require Background Checks to Buy 3D Printers

New York lawmakers are looking at requiring consumers to first go through a criminal history background check before they can buy certain 3D printers. 

The legislation is designed to crack down on potential misuse of 3D printers capable of manufacturing gun parts. The proposal comes from Democratic Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar, who introduced the bill on Friday. 

Under the legislation, 3D printer retailers would need to request a background check from New York’s criminal justice services when a customer tries to make a purchase. Criminal justice services would then need to notify the retailer if the customer has received a felony or serious offense that would make them ineligible to possess a firearm. 

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Lawmakers call on Biden to make it more difficult for people to download gun blueprints

Lawmakers in California, led by Congressman Mike Thompson, penned a letter asking the Joe Biden administration to hold manufacturers responsible for homemade ghost guns.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

Currently, it is relatively easy to buy gun parts, or make them at home with a 3D printer, and create an untraceable firearm. Ghost guns allow people to circumvent the background check requirement to own a gun.

“It is far too easy for anyone to download from the internet the computer code to 3D-print unserialized, untraceable, plastic ‘ghost guns,’” the letter said. “These 3D-printed weapons circumvent our system of gun safety rules and regulations, and pose a serious threat to public safety and national security.”

The question of banning the distribution of blueprints for 3D printed guns has been debated over the years, with much speculation that banning the sharing of blueprints is a First Amendment violation.

“President Biden can undo the Trump-era rule that has made the instructions for the 3D-printing of untraceable and deadly ‘ghost’ guns widely available online,” said Senator Markey. “The online distribution of these ghost gun blueprints only increases the risk of these weapons proliferating and poses a serious threat to public safety and national security. President Biden should fulfil his campaign promise and reverse the Trump administration’s weakening of these gun safety regulations.”

“They’re making firearms and they’re shooting and they’re killing people,” Thompson said.

“If you are a danger to yourself or to others, if you’re dangerously mentally ill, if you’re a criminal, you should not be able to get your mitts on a gun,” he added.

CBS13 asked Thompson about gun advocacy groups pushing back against manufacturers being held liable yet they did not commit the actual crimes.

“I have one word for these groups and that’s, ‘tough.’ We need these rules,” he responded.

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Man says he was paid $21,000 for trading in 3D-printed guns at government buyback event, New York attorney general responds

A New York man claimed that he was paid $21,000 for trading in 3D-printed guns at a government buyback event.

A man who identified himself as “Kem” noticed that the New York attorney general’s office was holding a gun buyback event at the Utica Police Department on Aug. 27. Kem allegedly 3D-printed dozens of guns on a $200 3D printer he got for Christmas.

Kem told WKTV, “I 3D-printed a bunch of lower receivers and frames for different kinds of firearms.”

The man reportedly drove six hours to the Utica Police Department to trade in the firearms.

Kem said, “And he sees the tote and says, ‘how many firearms do you have?’ And I said, ‘110.’”

He said that he negotiated all day with the staff of the attorney general’s office.

“And it ended with the guy and a lady from the budget office finally coming around with the 42 gift cards and counting them in front of me,” Kem explained. “$21,000 in $500 gift cards.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that “296 firearms, including 177 ghost guns, were turned in to law enforcement at a gun buyback event hosted by her office and the Utica Police Department.”

“Since 2013, OAG has hosted gun buyback events throughout New York state and has successfully collected more than 5,300 firearms,” the statement read. “To date, Attorney General James has helped remove more than 3,300 guns out of communities since 2019.”

Kem mocked James, “I’m sure handing over $21,000 in gift cards to some punk kid after getting a bunch of plastic junk was a rousing success.”

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A Simple Plastic Tool Is Undermining New Ghost Gun Rules

It’s been less than a month since new federal rules took effect attempting to rein in the proliferation of so-called “ghost guns,” a catchall term for unserialized, home-built firearms that Democratic leaders, law enforcement officials, and gun control groups say are turning up in the hands of criminals across the United States.

But barely a few weeks into the new regulatory regime, the firearms industry has already adapted and scored an early legal victory. And gun enthusiasts have created and released open-source blueprints for a simple plastic tool that offers a relatively quick, easy—and apparently legal—workaround for anyone who still wants to build an untraceable weapon.

The tool, known as a jig, is designed to help with the assembly of the exact type of Glock-style pistol frames that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) is trying to restrict. One version was posted by Ethan Middleton, a Wisconsin-based 3D-printed gun file designer known online as Middleton Made.

“It’s the biggest middle finger to the ATF,” Middleton told VICE News. “Whatever they’re going to do, we’re going to try to find a way around it.”

The new ATF rules, announced by President Joe Biden earlier this year, are largely aimed at “kit guns,” which include a pistol frame and other essential parts, including a jig and other tools for home assembly. When frames come only partially complete (“80 percent” finished, with some holes left undrilled), they are not legally considered firearms, meaning they do not require a serial number and could be purchased without a background check in most states.

The new rules say that when an unfinished frame or receiver is “distributed, or possessed with a compatible jig or template,” it can be considered a firearm under the law because it makes completing the build process faster and easier. 

As a result, some retailers have responded by selling only the pistol frame alone, while others are selling kits that include the necessary parts and tools but no frame. Jigs are a common tool and factory-made versions are available online, but prices have climbed to over $100, making the 3D-printed version an extremely low-cost alternative.

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