3D printing technology is finding many new and exciting applications around the world.
Not surprisingly a slew of ambitious 3D printing technology is being implemented in Middle East. Here’s a recap.
Jordan
A health-monitoring device was awarded first place recently at Amman’s Maker Hackathon. Smart Tops, a wearable healthcare system designed by Islam Abu Alruz, utilizes sensors to provide real-time data on the wearer’s heartbeat, body temperature, posture, and other metrics to identify health risks and connect users with emergency medical services.
Abu Alruz was just one of more than 50 engineers who were there.
Second place went to Laser Tag Game, a digital interpretation of the sport that utilizes smartphones and Google Maps to track players. Sukarh, a product design that rebrands traditional Nabulsi pumpkin jam as a multinational Arab product, wa selected for third place.
Iraq
Experts are using crowdsourced images and 3D printing technology in an ambitious project to recreate ancient artifacts destroyed by Islamic State in the Iraqi city of Mosul.
Last month ISIS released a video that showed militants using sledgehammers and drills to destroy artifacts in the Mosul Museum, the latest in a string of wanton attacks on sites of historic and religious importance.
Project Mosul, part of the European Union-funded Initial Training Network for Digital Cultural Heritage, is calling on volunteers to help restore the museum’s devastated artifacts.
A host of Mosul Museum artifacts are listed on the Project’s website, including statues, steles, or stone slabs, reliefs, and ancient gates.
Sudan
Multiple protracted conflicts in Sudan have left an estimated 50,000 amputees, many of them children. After reading the news American entrepreneur Mick Ebeling decided to help sudanes children who lost their limbs or arms to function normally again.
So he travelled to the Nuba Mountains in Sudan with a 3D printer and made the robotic prosthetic for a teenager who had lost his hands. Ebeling is founder of Californian non-profit Not Impossible Company.
“His team left two 3D printers in a hospital in the mountainous southern region after training locals in the technique. Since then they say the lab has produced one arm a week. 3D printing makes products by layering material – plastic in this case – until a three-dimensional object is created.
Bahrain
Cutting edge environmentally friendly technology in construction will be in focus at an upcoming industry show in Bahrain.
Revolutionary 3D printing, the challenge of super-tall buildings and state-of-the-art fire-fighting systems will be among the more than 200 brands and services on show during the fourth edition of the Arabian MEP (Mechanical Engineering Plumbing) Conference and Exhibition, being held at the Bahrain International Exhibition and Convention Centre from April 6 to 8.
KSA
SABIC (Saudi Basic Industries Corporation) works in material optimization, testing, and designing for additive manufacturing processes, and they’ve been a part of the Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) printer project. That machine was used to build the 3D printed Strati car, and they helped with process improvements in fused deposition modeling and extrusion-based printing processes.
Now SABIC has unveiled a new roof design for heavy-duty vehicles to enhance fuel economy.
This thermoplastic roof reduces drag, and the company says it is capable of raising the fuel economy of large vehicles by up to three percent.
Syria
It is estimated that the Syrian conflict has produced up to 200,000 amputees, and Refugee Open Ware (ROW) a 3D printed prostheses project, is doing something about this grave fact. ROW has teamed up with Dutch 3D printer manufacturer Ultimaker to establish an on-site fab lab in the Jordanian border’s Za’atari Camp, which hosts 85,000 Syrian refugees.
This lab will eventually offer vocational training, educational programs, business development, and psychological treatment through interactive art
UAE
The first ever 3D Printing Exhibition and Conference in the Middle East will take place during 20 and 21 of May 2015 in Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center.
Top global brand such as Microsoft, Xerox and Omni 3D are among exhibitors. Top notch speakers experts from NASA including Anjan Contractor co-inventor of 3D food printer for NASA’S long duration space missions and Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis director of craft, USC and NASA innovative advanced concepts (NIAC) fellow are delivering presentations during the event.
WinSun Decoration Design Engineering, a China-based company behind the 3D printing house technology, has clinched a major 20,000-unit order from Egypt government.,
These houses are made using an exclusive printing ‘ink’ made of recycled construction waste, glass fibre, steel, cement and special additives, remarked Ma Yi He, the chief executive of WinSun, as he showcased the single-storey printed house pre-ordered by the Egyptian government.
Egypt’s military rulers have promised to build a million affordable homes by 2020, he added.
The print machine is 6.6 m tall, 10 m wide, and 150 m long.
