Mechanical engineering graduate students Apoorva Kiran and Robert MacCurdy of Cornell University have 3D printed a loudspeaker. While most 3D printing projects involve printing just the outer shell and assembling electronics inside them, these students have managed to 3D print almost every component of the speaker. While it was easy to print the plastic casing the researchers had to put in more efforts to make the conductive coil and the magnet. They printed the conductive coil using silver ink. They took the help of Samanvaya Srivastava, graduate student in chemical and bio-molecular engineering who concocted a viscous blend of strontium ferrite which was used to make the magnet.


After reading the first paragraph you might be tempted to buy a 3D printer that would print all the electronics you need at home but this might be a farfetched dream. Associate Professor Hod Lipson who guided the researchers in their project says that most commercial printers cannot handle multiple materials efficiently and it is difficult to find mutually compatible materials. For example the same printer cannot print plastic casing as well as the copper wiring at the same time. The researchers themselves took the help of two printers to make the loudspeaker. To demonstrate their work the team hooked up the speaker and played an audio clip from a speech by US President Barack Obama where he is talking about 3D printing. You can have a look at the video and read more about their project on the #-Link-Snipped-#.

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