This popped up into my inbox this morning and gave me a bit of a giggle, but its a serious story for those with an interest in rapid prototyping (or indeed, direct manufacturing). For those that don’t know Materialise, it’s one of the biggest rapid prototyping bureaux out there – and having visited their facilities a few years ago, the breadth of services they offer and the capability they have (this was before the new facilities opened), it was truly mind boggling. Anyway, what the team has done is build a set of Ping Pong equipment using its new Xtreme stereolithography material (Materialise develop both new materials and new prototyping hardware) – they played a game or two. And rather handily video’ed it for your viewing pleasure.
According to the company, toughness and durability are the key aspects of the Xtreme material with a very good impact strength (0.45 J/cm) which, combined with an elongation at break of up to 22 percent, makes it “suited for a wide range of prototyping and manufacturing applications including tough enclosures, snap fit assemblies, consumer electronic components and alternatives for CNC machined parts.“
