Image: Made in Space
This month, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station needed a wrench. So NASA emailed him one, and he 3D printed it.It wasn't the first thing to be 3D printed in space—that was a test part for the printer itself—but the agency described it as the first object "created to meet the needs of an astronaut" and the first "designed on Earth and then transmitted to space for manufacture." The wrench was designed by Made in Space, which built and operates the ISS printer.There have been a whole bunch of 3D printing firsts this year. We've seen big stuff like buildings and cars, useful stuff like end-product vehicle parts, and advances in materials like printing shape-shifting robots or human skin.But one thing that's particularly appealing about the wrench is you can print it yourself at home with a desktop printer, some of which now retail for well under £1,000 ($1,500). Here's the file.It's clear that 3D printing is headed in two directions: on the one hand you have the projects that require specialised equipment for specific industries and are beyond the means of the hobbyist maker movement, and on the other you have your garden-variety desktop printer that is nevertheless capable of some pretty cool prints.Sure, the ISS has a fancy custom-made printer—it has to deal with zero gravity, after all—but the model for the wrench is a regular STL file used by many printers. Here are some other end-of-year picks of the best things you can now print at home.Model spaceshipsThe wrench might be the first useful thing printed actually in space, but NASA has an impressive library of space-related models enthusiasts can print. From models of the comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft to topographies of the Moon, could 3D printing be the new papier mâché for educational aids?A functioning telescopeSo you'll need a Raspberry Pi and a Newtonian concave mirror too, but this whole telescope costs just £100 ($155) to make and takes pretty decent pictures of the Moon, magnified up to 160 times. Researchers at the University of Sheffield made the plans for the prototype available through LinuxUser magazine and are working on a more refined model that they intend to crowdfund next year.The project was intended as a way to democratise this kind of technology so armchair astronomers can get access to tools that would normally cost hundreds of pounds more.Medical equipment3D printing has been used in laboratories and medical institutions to create models to guide surgery, with one report concluding that the technology is indispensable to the delicate operations required for facial transplants.But some are already printing medical devices out in the field; Motherboard's DJ Pangburn reported earlier this year on organisations like nonprofit Field Ready, which are using common desktop printers to print medical equipment in underdeveloped communities. Disposable medical supplies such as umbilical clamps and splitters for oxygen tanks sound simple, they're not always readily available in more remote regions.ProstheticsThere are a whole load of stories of patients receiving 3D-printed prosthetic limbs, but the most touching are those that have been made by DIYers looking to lend a hand (pardon the pun). In July, a Florida engineering student Alex Pring designed an arm for a six-year-old boy using off-the-shelf parts. He worked with volunteer community E-nabling the Future, which helps connect 3D printing enthusiasts and those who require prosthetics.Pring's not the only one—a host of designs for homemade prosthetics are shared open-source on sites like Instructables and Thingiverse.Sex toysI've lost track of how many sites will now offer to print your home-designed sex toy. Inevitably, there's also the option to download a pre-designed file and do the printing yourself. But for goodness sake, be careful with your material choices.This tape measureOne of my favourite hobbyist creations this year, this tape measure is made of 114 pieces but was printed all in one go, by mechanical engineer Brian Daniels. Like interlocking gear balls and gyro balls, which have become sculptural 3D printing classics, it's an example of the intricate designs and moving parts you can get out of a printer. And unlike those trinkets, it's actually kind of useful.Replacement partsBoring for sure, but this is what home 3D printing is all about: hacking and fixing stuff yourself. Is there anything more annoying than breaking a tiny yet essential part off a drone, rendering your favourite toy useless unless you shell out for a replacement propeller? There's a corner of the internet that'll help you with that.Elsewhere, you can get files for common dowels and mounts used in Ikea furniture. And little bits of plastic can even fill in the gaps where you didn't realise something was missing—like this 3D printed clip that connects Google Glass to any pair of glasses.Of course, the risk with 3D printing at home is that it can—and often does—go wrong. But if worst comes to worst, you can just polish mistakes up into beautiful 3D-printed glitch art.
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