3D printers (Medium)

Introduction

Printers have come a long way since the printing press was first invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1436 in Germany. 3D printers – printers which can build solid, three-dimensional objects out of a variety of materials – are today providing solutions to many problems. Sam and Neil look at the role 3D printers are playing in medicine, and they teach you some related vocabulary as well.

This week’s question

What was the oldest known text to be printed using hand-carved wooden blocks pressed into ink? Was it:

a) a religious teaching?
b) a cooking recipe? or,
c) a love letter?

Listen to the programme to find out the answer.

Vocabulary

mucking about with (something)
(informal) spending time playing with something carelessly, not for a serious purpose

prototype
model of a product that can be tested, improved, and used to develop a better product

Hold on a minute!
phrase used to express surprise or disbelief

prosthetics
man-made artificial body part such as an arm, leg, foot or eye, used to replace a missing natural part

custom-made / bespoke
specially made to meet the requirements of a particular person

time-consuming
taking a lot of time to do

Lắng nghe và điền vào chỗ trống:

Cloze Test

CLOZE TEST

3DMandeepMarkNeilOKSamThesea
addinganareareaasblockcarelesslycookingdevelopexcited
expresseyeeyesforhisimprovedinisnewobjectsocularistofotherprintedprinterputrevealsimilarstartedtechnologythatthetwo-dimensionaluseswaswhatwithwrongyear

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. Im Sam.

Neil

And Im Neil. In 1436 Germany, Johannes Gutenberg, invented the printing press - a machine capable of making many copies of the same page text. Ever since, printing has been used around the world to produce books, newspapers and magazines.

Sam

Printing has come a long way since Gutenbergs time, but even todays most advanced laser printers have only printed flat, objects… until now.

Neil

In this programme, were discussing 3D printers  � printers which can build solid, three-dimensional out of a variety of materials including plastic, concrete and metal.

Sam

Now, Neil, when you say a that can make solid objects, I guess youre not talking about a normal printer…

Neil

Thats right, Sam. large and complex 3D printers work in a completely different way. Unlike a sculptor who chips away at a of stone to reveal a shape underneath, 3D printers work in the opposite way, building up physical objects by material layer on layer. And the ability to print objects in this way is providing solutions to many problems, well be finding out…

Sam

But first I have a question for you, Neil. Before Johannes Gutenberg invented printing press, copies of texts were made by block printing, using hand-carved wooden blocks pressed into ink. So - was the oldest known text to be printed this way? Was it:

a) a religious teaching?

b) a recipe? or,

c) a love letter?

Neil

I think it might have been a recipe.

Sam

OK, . Ill reveal the answer later in the programme. The idea of printing solid objects is not new, but it only after the millennium that tech companies began to realise how it could be done. Heres Professor Mark Miodownik, material scientist at University College, London, explaining more to BBC World Service programme, People Fixing The World:

Professor Miodownik

As the millennium turned, patents expired and that meant people started making very cheap 3D printers. And people mucking about with them and going, ‘Hold on a minute! - its not just an industrial tool…. You can them in schools, you can put them in universitiesOhh…, it's actually really great for prototyping’. And then people got about it and it became the answer to everything. Everything was going to be 3D-printed!

Neil

After the 2000, 3D printers suddenly got much cheaper and tech companies started mucking about with them  � spending time playing them in a fun way. They realised that 3D printers had many uses - for example, they discovered that printers were great at making prototypes  � models of a product that can be tested, improved and used to better products.

Sam

Professor Miodownik thinks these tech companies were surprised at how useful 3D printing was. He the phrase Hold on a minute! to express this surprise or disbelief.

Neil

In fact, in turned out 3D printers were excellent at making bespoke things  � objects which are made specially for a particular person. One which 3D printing dramatically improved was medical prosthetics - artificial body parts made specially for someone who has lost arm, a leg or a foot, for example.

Sam

In 2021, Stephen Verze, who lost an eye in childhood accident, became the first person to be fitted with a 3D-printed prosthetic eye. Its prosthetic, so the new doesn't restore Stephens sight, but it has boosted his confidence. Surgeon, Mandeep Sagoo, led the team at Moorsfield Hospital operated on Stephens eye. Here he is explaining more to BBC World Services’, People Fixing The World:

Professor Sagoo

In many countries, particularly the developed world, there are facilities for custom-making a prosthetic eye to match the eye, and that's an artisan process which is very time-consuming and requires real artistry on the part of the  � the ocularist is the person who fits the prosthetic eye  � and so what we have been developing a technique to automate the whole process.

Neil

Even before 3D printers, prosthetic eyes were custom-made-, a word to ‘�bespoke��’ which means specially made according to a particular persons requirements. But the traditional way of making artificial by hand is very time-consuming  � it takes a lot of time to do. Nowadays, 3D printing can complete whole process in just thirty minutes.

Sam

Its great to see technology helping people, and amazing how far inventions like 3D printers have come since the days of Johannes Gutenberg… speaking of which, Neil, its time to the answer to my question.

Neil

Right. You asked me about the earliest known text to have been using wooden blocks, and I guesses it was a cooking recipe… So, was I right?

Sam

You were… , Im afraid, Neil! The oldest known wooden block print was actually a religious text  � the Buddhas Diamond Sutra. , lets recap the vocabulary from this programme, starting with mucking about, an informal way to say playing with something , not for a serious reason.

Neil

A prototype is a model of a product that can be tested, and used to develop a better product.

Sam

The phrase Hold on a minute! can be used to surprise or disbelief.

Neil

Prosthetics refer to artificial body parts such as arms, legs, feet or eyes, which used to replace a missing natural part.

Sam

The words bespoke, and custom-made describe something specially made for particular person.

Neil

And finally, if something is time-consuming-, it takes a lot of time to do. Goodbye now!

Sam

Goodbye!

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