The Gross “Modular Body” Isn’t Really 3D Printed

By on April 17th, 2016 in Ideas

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 3D printed modular body being assembled3
3D printed modular body being assembled3

I’m perusing an extremely strange site describing “Oscar”, said to be the world’s first 3D printed modular organism. 

Warning, this is pretty creepy stuff. 

The site describes a mysterious project in which a living organism is designed in a modular way and then 3D printed into components. They wish to re-engineer the human body into a componentized version that would include replaceable, highly efficient and immortal parts. Henceforth, human reproduction would take place in a lab. Their goal is to produce a hand-sized prototype to demonstrate the technology. 

This video, one of apparently 56 in the series, shows how the pieces are connected to form a working “organism”:

“The organs are now collaborating!”

No, this isn’t real. It’s a science fiction video series. 

What’s interesting is that it capitalizes on the idea of 3D printing in a science fiction way. Here you can see a portion of a video that shows how some of the components might have been bioprinted. 

 Bioprinting a component of the modular body prototype
Bioprinting a component of the modular body prototype

The result is a bizarre autonomous robot organism that apparently seeks a comfortable +37C environment. 

One more time, this is fiction. It’s not real. 

But that’s today. What might happen in the future when bioprinters become more capable? Could something like this actually happen? 

Maybe, but not at my home. 

Via The Modular Body

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!