A quadcopter outfitted with an on - card 3D printing machine could be used to varnish off and enrapture nuclear waste product , or even to build structure in the middle of nowhere , agree to its inventor , Mirko Kovac of Imperial College London . “ In effect , it ’s the Earth ’s first flying 3D printer,”New Scientistwrites . “ One Clarence Shepard Day Jr. such poke might work together to help remove waste from nuclear sites or help patch up damaged buildings . ”
Apparently inspired by the nest - building behavior of Jonathan Swift , birds that construct spaces using their own spit , the simple machine uses a miscellany of two chemicals that combine to form a quick - hardening polyurethane foam . That froth — otherwise amorphous , and only utilise as precisely as the quadcopter ’s stability would allow — then roleplay as an adhesive material , basically stick the drone to small container of waste that can then be lift to prophylactic .
But the messy state of affairs ascertain in the video embed above is also a fairly clean indicant that the technical school has not yet caught up to the aspiration of its inventors — or perhaps that they are even look in the unseasonable orbit . After all , radioactivity - resistant foams applied on a large - enough scale to have any material effect on a nuclear disaster seem quite a way off .
On the other script , bellying , radio-controlled aircraft - publish architectural class project with the limitations of these ethereal printheads in mind could be a feasible fresh mental synthesis process . Some strange and self-directed raw metropolis of froth restfully takes shape atop a lost plateau in South America , as wayward aerial printers congregate there , disgorge polyurethan mist , constructing dense labyrinths of tugboat populated only by other 3D printers . [ New Scientist ]
3D printingArchitectureCitiesDronesNuclear Waste
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