Researchers Develop 3D Printed Objects That Can Track and Store How They Are Used

Researchers at the University of Washington have developed 3D printed assistive technology that can track and store their use -- without using batteries or electronics. From a blog post on University of Washington: Cheap and easily customizable, 3D printed devices are perfect for assistive technology, like prosthetics or "smart" pill bottles that can help patients remember to take their daily medications. But these plastic parts don't have electronics, which means they can't monitor how patients are using them. Now engineers at the University of Washington have developed 3D printed devices that can track and store their own use -- without using batteries or electronics. Instead, this system uses a method called backscatter, through which a device can share information by reflecting signals that have been transmitted to it with an antenna.

"We're interested in making accessible assistive technology with 3D printing, but we have no easy way to know how people are using it," said co-author Jennifer Mankoff, a professor in the UW's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. "Could we come up with a circuitless solution that could be printed on consumer-grade, off-the-shelf printers and allow the device itself to collect information? That's what we showed was possible in this paper." The UW team will present its findings next week at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology in Berlin.

Great...

[Locke2005]

Now makers of some 3D printed objects will know _exactly_ what orifice people are inserting them into!

Re:

[Oswald McWeany]

Can you make 3D printed devices that vibrate?

Huh?

[freeze128]

A picture is worth a thousand summaries.

Re: The video suggests RFID...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is like sonar in RFID frequencies. When they make it sound as if the part itself is storing the information, and then they say backscatter, it makes it look like they don't know what they are talking about. Surprised they didn't mention blockchain, cloud, and edge computing.

Deja vu

[thebullshitpatrol]

They announced the exact same thing a year ago, they had a Tide detergent container with a flow-meter on the spout.

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[careysub]

You are right this is the same guy with backscatter [washington.edu] but a different mechanical situation for his 3D-printed backscatter antenna switches. He has got a paper gold mine going here, if he can just keep dreaming up yet another 3D-printed backscatter antenna switch prototype.

Re:

[thoughtlover]

That's not at all what it is. But it is.

There's no RFID chip being printed within a 3D printed object.

The tech uses gears with special spacing on teeth to wind a spring with mechanical motion being the power source.

What they don't get into is the fact there has to be something conductive to transmit the encoded info to the wifi receiver.

This gets more to the core of their tech which I think could be pervasive, especially in hospitals and nursing homes.

https://www.washington.edu/new... [washington.edu]

excellent project

[CarlieSaban]

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Re:

[CarlieSaban]

By the way, I read that many researchers started to do research in the field of developing 3D printers and there are many products developed today.