The much-anticipated first edition of the popular Inside 3D Printing conference series Down Under landed in Melbourne this week. Despite images of Australian cities being full of palm trees, beaches and beautiful bronzed inhabitants, Melbourne’s outdoors today were more reminiscent of a winter’s day in my home town of Glasgow, Scotland, and so heading to a 3D printing conference taking place in the shelter of the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre was ever the more appealing!
Day 1 of I3DP event had a packed programme – back-to-back talks with only one half hour break in the afternoon – with a line-up that ensured maximum ‘bang for your buck’. The initial sessions comprised the keynotes, starting with Terry Wohlers, the veteran 3D printing guru, who gave a useful and engaging overview of current trends and future developments with the technology.
The subsequent speakers came from various parts of the 3D printing ecosystem in Australia, with academic research institutions, industry players and government bodies represented by speakers from the Advanced Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre, Manufacturing Excellence Taskforce Australia, CSIRO, and Invetech. Emerging trends in the Australian 3D printing landscape seemed concentrated in two main fields: 3D printing metals; and 3D printing uses and applications in medicine, whether in the 3D printing of human tissue, implants and prosthetics. There was also some input from architectural researchers at RMIT who had been encountering 3D printing in their work, with some great shots of the Sagrada Familia church and the architectural models made of it combining two of my favourite things: Barcelona and 3D printing!
The maker community was also well represented. Software and hardware hacker Daniel Tosello gave us his ‘remix’ of the ‘Ten Commandments of Making’, with a strong encouragement for people to share their ideas, designs and outputs, while April Staines showed us her impressive home-made collection of sci-fi and fantasy replica props, including some large and slightly scary looking weaponry (all of it non-functioning, we were assured…)
Intellectual property law expert and Inside 3D Printing veteran John Hornick made quite the entrance on his orange (partially) 3D printed bicycle that apparently he had just picked up before going on to outline the future AND demise of intellectual property law and protections in the 3D printing ecosystem.
As energy levels were dropping off a little towards the end of the day, Professor Peter Choong from the University of Melbourne and St Vincent’s Hospital gave a spirited closing talk on how he and his team of medical researchers were using 3D printing as well as other advancing technologies to enhance their work on orthopaedic surgery, with audience members being keen to find out when we will be able to get 3D printed replacement body parts.
All in all, Day 1 of I3DP comprised a top quality line-up, which was informative about general 3D printing trends as well as those specifically affecting Australia, or particularly prevalent here. I am looking forward to reporting back on what looks like an equally exciting day tomorrow! In the meantime, for those that can’t wait for the round-up, I will be tweeting from @angelacdaly during the conference sessions.
