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OT: The F*cking Science Thread

http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2014/09/3d-printer-builds-concrete-house-just-24-hours/

Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis just upped the 3D printing game in a big way. He and his team of scientists at the University of Southern California invented a machine that can build a 2,500-square-foot concrete house in just 24 hours.

The process is called Contour Crafting, which includes a giant 3D printer embedded on a computer-controlled gantry system that robotically squirts out fast drying concrete layer by layer to rapidly build walls of a house. The machine leaves space in the walls for electrical, plumbing, air-conditioning and other utilities to be installed.....
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WellPlayed said:
So I guess I'll rent...
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Concrete is still pretty expensive. Doing a 4 inch thick pad of concrete over a 1200 sq space is about 1400 in concrete alone. It would take a lot, a lot more to build a house...so it's not like the materials cost would be any cheaper than how houses are built now.

Basically what I'm saying is that it will take a bit of a breakthrough in material sciences (replacing concrete with something else) before this takes over.
 
I'm surprised they wouldn't need some form of rebar as well, though they're doing some nifty hollow-core construction.

Definitely just the start in what will be a long line of advancements in automated construction. I agree with ME though, all about advancement in materials.
 
I thought I read about a great new material a couple months back. Forget what it was exactly.
 
Aberdeen said:
I'm surprised they wouldn't need some form of rebar as well, though they're doing some nifty hollow-core construction.
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I'm not an expert in concrete construction at all, but you would imagine so. With that said, there is a concrete laced with graphene that has huge structural strength that might allow them to do away with rebar.

Definitely just the start in what will be a long line of advancements in automated construction. I agree with ME though, all about advancement in materials.
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Yeah, just like any other major advancement, it takes the peripheral industries a while to catch up.
 
Sept-5th_Tech_2.jpg
 
MindzEye said:
I'm not an expert in concrete construction at all, but you would imagine so. With that said, there is a concrete laced with graphene that has huge structural strength that might allow them to do away with rebar.



Yeah, just like any other major advancement, it takes the peripheral industries a while to catch up.
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Even if you just need to have a couple guys there to put pre-fab rebar framing in place while the machine did it's thing, that's still a huge time and labour savings.
 
johnunit said:
Even if you just need to have a couple guys there to put pre-fab rebar framing in place while the machine did it's thing, that's still a huge time and labour savings.
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Yeah, it would be and that's probably what the first generation of the technology will look like. There will probably be some sort of a graphene enhanced polymer at some point though. Material sciences are about 5-7 years away from being ridiculous where the stuff we currently speak about in fairly hushes tones will be commercially available, and the next gen of wild shit will exist and just not be economically feasible yet.
 
I can't see something like that being great for the economy, atleast not at the beginning.

Many general carpenters would lose a lot of work, sounds like housing prices would decrease. I'd be interested to see how something like that would pan out.
 
Cojo said:
I can't see something like that being great for the economy, atleast not at the beginning.

Many general carpenters would lose a lot of work, sounds like housing prices would decrease. I'd be interested to see how something like that would pan out.
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Yep, but the car put a lot of people in the Horse industry out of work too. Turned out fine for the economy.

We're about to live through a period at least as transformative as the Industrial revolution. We're about to go from an Industrial economy to an automated/robotic economy. All of those people who toiled in the field found new jobs in the industrial economy and I don't doubt that those who are rooted in the industrial economy will find new work in the automated economy.

The ride will be bumpy though, absolutely.
 
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Sooo...to recap

1) dafuq??? Seriously...that's ****ing crazy
2) One their way to curing all disease...apparently
3) I welcome our new rodent overlords
4) **** your spleen, we've made improvements
5) Another middle finger to Putin
6) Are they going to have to install suicide nets while they build?
 
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