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John Carrington (left) and Kevin Maloney, who cofounded Zverse as a result of a lunchtime conversation, display some of the items produced on their 3-D printers. For more information, visit zverse.com.
Photo by Andrew Haworth
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Paralyzed from the waist down in a skiing accident, Amanda Boxtel was the first to test a custom-fitted robotic exoskeleton designed and printed by 3D Systems of Rock Hill.
Photo by 3D Systems
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From sugar diamonds to titanium hip implants to plastic toys, almost anything can be produced with a 3-D printer, says Avi Reichental, president and CEO of 3D Systems. "We can print over 120 materials." For more information on the company, visit 3dsystems.com.
Photo by 3D Systems
Walk into the lobby of 3D Systems Corporation and you will enter a place that’s half a cabinet of curiosities, half a fantastical playhouse.
The walls are lined with detailed models of the human skull, Mayan death masks and sleek prosthetic limbs. Waist-high, black-and-white chess pieces stand guard like sentries. In a large and intricately decorated Victorian dollhouse, a tiny turkey dinner sits atop a tiny kitchen table. Visitors can touch just about everything, except the geometric shapes made of sugar.
Every item in this unusual collection, whether made from plastic, metal or sugar, was printed on a device designed and produced by this company, headquartered in Rock Hill. As the largest manufacturer of 3-D printers in the world, 3D Systems is on the cutting edge of a technology that many believe will change everything—from how we eat to the way we capture time with loved ones to the medical procedures that save our lives.
It’s a story you might expect to be unfolding in Silicon Valley and other well-established tech hubs. In fact, it’s happening right here in South Carolina.
Layer upon layer
The idea that turned Charles Hull into the grandfather of 3-D printing started out as spaghetti. In 1983, the inventor worked as an engineer for a small company in California that used UV light to fashion tough, acrylic-based surfaces for tables—as the light hit the liquid material, it hardened into a resinous plastic.
Hull wondered what might be possible if, instead of curing a single, two-dimensional coat, thousands of ultra-thin coats were “printed” on top of each other and hardened according to a specific computer generated design.
For a long time, Hull’s private experiments in his spare lab merely resulted in a tangled mess of resin spaghetti. Finally, around midnight one evening about a year into his efforts, he printed a small cup—the world’s first 3-D printed object. He called the technology stereolithography and in 1986 went on to found 3D Systems, which eventually relocated to South Carolina. Hull remains the company’s chief technology officer today.
“Chuck Hull knew that this technology would be impactful, but even he couldn’t have imagined all the things people have done with it,” says Avi Reichental, the current president and CEO of 3D Systems.
Hull first sold his technology to Detroit, where the auto industry and other manufacturers used it for rapid prototyping of detailed mechanical parts that might otherwise take months or even years to produce. The aerospace and defense industries were also quick to recognize the potential of 3-D printing. For the first two decades of its existence, though, the technology required specialized expertise. Only computer-aided design (CAD) software engineers could actually implement it, which sometimes generated friction with designers and may explain why much of the public remained unaware of its growing influence and use.
All that has changed in the past decade with the development of personal 3-D printers. Dozens of plug-and-play devices now on the market use intuitive software that requires no knowledge of CAD, just a little bit of imagination. These include the well-known Makerbot Replicators and 3D Systems’ line of Cube printers, tabletop machines that print plastic objects in a rainbow of colors. It’s this kind of printed product—dinosaur figurines, futuristic napkin holders, bangle bracelets—that currently dominates the public’s conception of 3-D printing.
The democratization of the technology and the arrival of kid-friendly, sub-$1,000 home 3-D printers is an incredible thing, says Reichental, but it represents just the tip of the technological iceberg. There are no costs or penalties for 3-D printing objects that are highly complex. That “free” complexity is driving faster innovation and greater performance in demanding manufacturing fields.
Gains in materials science have also contributed to the rise of 3-D printing and pushed it into unexpected fields. “We can print with over 120 materials,” Reichental says. “Everything from chocolate to titanium.”
All of this explains why the technology has quietly spread into dozens of new industries and applications. The maker of Invisalign, the clear, plastic orthodontic alternative to metal braces, uses 3-D printed molds to slowly adjust teeth positions. In Afghanistan, engineers and archaeologists are using 3-D printing software and models to recreate cultural artifacts destroyed in the previous decade of war. Even the animation world has benefitted from the technology, with films like ParaNorman using 3D Systems printers to help animators model and develop more realistic facial expressions in their characters.
The most life-changing applications of the technology, though—present and future—are likely medical. A new breed of thermoplastics, heat-, chemical- and stress-resistant materials, allows doctors to reconstruct facial and cranial injuries in wounded soldiers, for instance, with 3-D-printed bones. The materials are “biocompatible,” meaning the human body does not recognize them as foreign. Instead, cells glom onto the thermoplastic, over time supplementing it with natural bone. Several of the men and women who had limbs amputated after the Boston Marathon bombings are able to walk, run and dance again thanks to lightweight, highly customized 3-D-printed prosthetics. Surgeons have even begun to use patients’ CT scan data to virtually plan and practice surgeries and print implants before stepping into the operating room, which can reduce the length of procedures and likelihood of complications.
“There is a lot of hype about the objects that we’ll be able to 3-D print in the future,” Reichental says. “What many people don’t realize is that this technology already touches everything around us, from the health care we receive to the cars we drive to the eyeglasses and shoes that we wear.”
Reichental says it’s no longer a question of whether the technology will be impactful, but rather how it will be most useful and influential in consumers’ personal lives. Will homes of the future contain culinary 3-D printers that print novelty candies, as does the recently unveiled 3D Systems ChefJet, or, perhaps one day, personalized nutrition? Will 3-D printers become integrated into our social lives the way cell phones have—with friends scanning and printing smiling 3-D selfies in addition to posting them to social media? Or will the technology develop most as a practical and educational tool, fit for toy making, tinkering and printing the odd broken part around the house?
“I believe that 3-D printing will impact our lives in all of those ways and countless more,” Reichental says. “Every day we discover a new application for this game-changing technology.”
Selling the stadium
An hour and a half down the road, Columbia-based Zverse is a portrait of how entrepreneurs are bringing 3-D printing to the fore. In a warehouse near Williams-Brice Stadium, the young company churns out products that sell as fast as they’re printed: sports collectibles. Palm-sized replicas of university stadiums are its signature—and most popular—product, and in just a year, Zverse has seen a meteoric rise, snagging dozens of difficult-to-obtain licenses to work with university athletics departments. The University of South Carolina was its first client, but now college football fans from Florida to Wisconsin to Oregon can own their beloved stadiums in miniature.
Cofounders John Carrington and Kevin Maloney, natives of Columbia and Augusta, Ga., respectively, had no idea they would end up in the sports memorabilia niche. Over lunch one day several years ago, their conversation found its way to the topic of 3-D printing. They kept returning to their excitement over new strides in 3-D print technology, and eventually their conversation began to take shape as a business idea.
Before long, they were on their way to tour 3D Systems’ facilities in Rock Hill.
“They have a fully functioning grandfather clock,” Carrington says. “How many moving parts are in a grandfather clock? That was fascinating to us. We were sold.”
In early 2013, Carrington decided to take the plunge and leave his job. At first, he was based in downtown Columbia’s IT-oLogy offices with a single 3-D printer. “I get cold sweats when I think about what was going on at the time,” Carrington says, “because we were so excited, but we really didn’t know how we were going to make money yet. I left my career with a wife and two kids.”
The company tried out 3-D printing products for a few niche markets before being noticed by scouts at Octagon, a giant in the entertainment marketing world. Executives had seen images of Carrington’s work online and encouraged him to tap into the college athletics market.
One of the company’s seminal moments came, quite literally, in the form of the landmark that now sits a mile from Zverse’s offices. Officials at the University of South Carolina approached the young company and asked for help producing something special for Military Appreciation Day, when veterans are recognized on-field during halftime at a Gamecocks football game. The university had presented gifts such as signed footballs in the past, but now they hoped Zverse could 3-D print a more personalized memento for each of the dozen veterans honored at the ceremony. Carrington asked if replicas of Williams-Brice Stadium had ever been produced. They hadn’t.
Ten days later, USC president Harris Pastides and athletics director Ray Tanner were handing out those replicas. Zverse was even able to incorporate the stadium’s then-current banners.
Had the replicas been traditionally manufactured, the process could have taken years. In traditional manufacturing, Carrington says, companies come up with an idea, prototype that idea, get a mold made—which can cost tens of thousands of dollars—and then have to source the production of the product, generally overseas. Manufacturing in China can alone add 4 to 6 months to the entire process.
“We’re taking actual, living content that day—and we’re able to make it the next day,” says cofounder Maloney.
In the company’s printing room, stadium replicas line finishing racks like hundreds of freshly baked confections. Each of Zverse’s four machines prints with a sandstone powder, which produces objects that feel ceramic to the touch and allows the company to incorporate color with greater nuance than any other 3-D printing material. In the next room, two designers sit at desks fine tuning the logos on a computer model of another stadium.
At $150 to $200 a pop, the replicas aren’t cheap, but many are limited-edition keepsakes, and every last one was designed and manufactured in Columbia. In addition to USC, Zverse has worked with Clemson University, Wofford College, Coastal Carolina University and The Citadel. The company’s 11-person staff, which Carrington projects will double in size next year, is all in-state talent. Most of the investors and board members are South Carolina-based, as well.
“We see a lot of opportunity for growth in South Carolina,” Maloney says of the state’s entrepreneurial culture.
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What's next in 3-D printing – Watch 3-D printers in action and view Avi Reichental’s TED talk on the link between high-tech manufacturing and old-world craftsmanship.