3D printers

3D printers are revolutionizing the world and are more and more accessible by the general public. Additive manufacturing is not a technology of the future: it’s already used in different industrial sectors. Using 3D printing allows you to learn about the technology, boost your curiosity and transfer a virtual project to the real world. A 3D printer works similar to a regular printer; however, it prints objects in three dimensions. Imagine the classic printer (2D) that prints sheets of paper with text or images. If you superimpose several sheets, you get a third dimension - this is the idea of how the 3D printer works. 3D printing has existed since the early 1970s, and it enables creating diverse objects which can be used for different purposes. There are different types of 3D printers, and thus, several printing methods exist. A common point between all of them is that every 3D printer creates layer by layer of a particular material to build an object. The differences lie in the way how these layers are put and in the material used for printing. There are, for example, industrial printers which use a selective laser sintering method, or stereolithography which allows printing with ultraviolet rays.