The Week in 3D Printing: Piece of Cake

The Week in 3D Printing enjoyed a summer vacay the last couple of weeks, so this Friday, we’ll cover the juiciest tidbits since the beginning of July. That means cake, Mars beams, a phone screen that could heal itself, and adorable kitten mobility aids, all this week in 3D printing.

Delicious, delicious 3D printing

It’s rare to find a story that combines the joy of 3D printing with the joy of cooking, but, probably because it’s Friday, we’ve somehow found just that. As CNET reported, pastry chef Dinara Kasko creates 3D printed silicone molds that enable you to create geometric “bubble cakes” like the one shown below. It would be hard to slice up this gorgeous work of art, but I’m pretty sure the taste would make it all worthwhile.

Beam me up, NASA

So, we’ve sort of figured out how to print moon bricks and turn Mars dust into tools, but you can’t have buildings without supports. Enter NASA’s 3D Printed Habitat Challenge, a design contest that seeks to solve the problem of housing on The Red Planet. As Space.com reported, the challenge’s second stage asked participants to build a beam that would withstand bend testing. The results might not be pretty, but they are powerful. Plus, they give a whole new meaning to the phrase “Beam me up.”

Phone, heal thyself

For some reason, a few years ago, we all started carrying around fragile panes of glass in our pockets, which we drop, constantly. It’s obvious that they would shatter on the regular. Also a few years ago, 3D printing started solving weird problems we’d created for ourselves, just like this one. As TheNextWeb reported, scientists at the University of Melbourne who have created a self-healing gel that could be used to repair phone screens in the future. That future cannot come soon enough.

-Sent from a cracked iPhone screen

All of the awwwwz

A Maine coon kitteh who can’t use his little back legs? Clearly, worth adopting. Especially if, like New Hampshire teacher Carrie Barron, you have a class of eighth-graders to help build a wheelchair for the little guy walk. With the help of the local library’s 3D printer, they rose to the challenge, and the results were, naturally, adorable. Watch the full video at abcnews.com, and check out an outtake from the R&D portion of the wheelchair project below: