Autodesk's flagship Autodesk University event takes place in London for the first time ever this week and TCT was invited along to Tobacco Dock to find out about what's next in the future of making things from generative design to additive manufacturing with robotics and machine intelligence. Here's a quick look at some of the cool, and primarily 3D printed, highlights you can see on the exhibition floor.
The Port of Rotterdam's RAMLAB facility has been researching the use of additive manufacturing to create certified metal marine parts on demand. As one of the lab's partners, Autodesk has played a key role in the design and manufacture of this ship propeller that was made using and hybrid manufacturing technique. We've got the full story in the latest issue of TCT Europe.
Andrew Saunders at the University of Pennsylvania, used 3D scanning to capture some of Italy's most important works of Baroque architecture. Designed to provide an interactive experience for his architecture students, Andrew 3D printed the models to provide tangible representations of the mathematical concepts and pattern intrinsic in this form of design.
As part of a project called Horizon AM, students at the University of Warwick, UK used Fusion 360 and 3D printing to design and build a UAV that could be applied as a mountain search and rescue device. The resulting UAV is a little over 2 metres in wingspan and is made from carbon fibre composite, with the carbon fibre mould tools produced using large-format 3D printing.
The well-known MX3D project to 3D print a scale metal bridge over a canal in Amsterdam, is here in the Autodesk Gallery demonstrating how 3D printing combined with robotics and generative can produce large-scale functional parts that are completely optimised and unrestricted by a build area.
A piece from 2013 Architecture Prize laureate, Toyo Ito considers the irrelevance of simple cube structures in containing the diversity of modern society in this 3D model of the Taichung Metropolitan Opera House in Taiwan. Formed of 50 curved walls connected by a core service wall, this complex organic shape is designed to provide an adaptable space that Ito says even upon completion of construction, will never be truly 'finished'.
Created with generative design, this chair represents the possibilities of using the computer as a co-designer. Designers began by inputting goals and constraints into generative design software which produced hundreds of possible designs. The resulting piece, made by CNC machining from black walnut wood, features 18% less volume than the original design and 80% decrease in maximum stresses.
