Strange News – 3D Printer Makes A Wrench

Ok, this video reminds me so much of the move "Weird Science", when 2 adolescents create a "companion" with their computer. Hard to believe nearly 25 years later, this concept is this much closer to reality. Take a look at this video and tell me you are not amazed by this idea.

Scientists working for National Geographic have created an amazing video showing how astronauts of the future will "print out" their tools. It shows work by the Z Corporation, in Burlington, Massachusetts, which specializes in 3D printers that can literally make almost anything-- even tools with moving parts. In the clip a huge adjustable wrench is first scanned into a computer. The image is then sent to a printer that uses a "specially engineered composite material" that starts out as a powder and is then bound together with a type of resin. Within 90 minutes, it has created a fully working, robust copy of the original wrench within 40 microns of accuracy -- less than the width of a human hair. Theoretical physicist David Kaplan, of Johns Hopkins University, said, "So going into space, you just take a printer and you can print whatever you want."