This Robot Can Print You a House Today
Researchers at MIT have designed a system that can 3D print the basic structure of an entire building. It's a strategy towards building that could radically lower the costs of construction.
MIT is not the first to build a livable structure out of 3D printing. Chinese construction companies have been using 3D printing since 2005, a company called Apis Cor has built a home in 24 hours for $10,000. But unlike "typical 3-D printing systems," MIT says in a press release, "most of which use some kind of an enclosed, fixed structure to support their nozzles and are limited to building objects that can fit within their overall enclosure, this free-moving system can construct an object of any size." That flexibility allows for the MIT system, known as the Digital Construction Platform, to be used in all sorts of environments.
The DCP is basically a hydraulic arm with tire treads. But that arm is versatile, and comes with a scoop that could be used to both prepare the building surface and use its basic environmental surroundings, like dirt, in the construction.
The DCP built a 50-foot-diameter, 12-foot-high dome in only 14 hours of printing time. This included a foam-insulation framework which was then used used to form a finished concrete structure. It's similar to the building techniques used by traditional builders.
Steven Keating, a mechanical engineering graduate who was lead researcher on the project, says the "construction industry is still mostly doing things the way it has for hundreds of years," using the same materials and built with saws and nails. "With this process, we can replace one of the key parts of making a building, right now," he says. "It could be integrated into a building site tomorrow."
The goal is a system that is entirely self-sufficient, that can be placed in nearly any environment and start building structures. That includes places both extreme and foreign, like Antarctica, the Moon, or Mars. Considering how China the European Space Agency just announced plans for a "Moon Village," the DCP, or something like, it, may be building a house out of Moon dirt sooner than you think.
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