3D Printer

Description

How do you build dozens of homes while sitting in a lawn chair sipping tea? 3D printers, that's how. Using Blueprints created in a 3D Scanner.

3D printers are powerful pieces of modern technology that are revolutionizing numerous industries from manufacturing and prototyping to construction, art, recycling, and more! 3D printers utilize a process known as 'additive manufacturing' where materials are deposited in layer after layer, one on top of the other, to form large 3D objects. While 3D printing hobbyists continue to push the boundaries of plastic figurine for paper weights on desks, modern industrial-scale 3D printers are printing ever more grand and complex objects including wood, metal, plastic, and other materials.

If you want to live in a 3D printed house, you could wait for a miraculous future full of science fiction technologies, or you could simply go today and spend anywhere from $1,000 to >$700,000 in one of the growing number of 3D printed communities across the USA.

A Future with 3D Printing: By one or two decades from now, the cost and material benefits of 3D printing means that 3D printers may have made your home whether you moved to a specialized community or not. And the art on your walls. And the clothes you are wearing that fit your body specifically. And the burger that you are eating. And yes, even the figurine paper weight you have on your desk.

External

A Special Thanks to our partner Adaptive3D and Desktop Metal for working with BEST Robotics and Polycraft World to make the 3D Printing Challenge.

Recipes

Outputs	Components	Recipe	Icon
3D Printer	Pipe (12) Beacon Regulator (Low Pressure) Structural Truss (12) Block of Redstone Furnace Minecart with Hopper Chest Rail (5)	12 12 5

Pro Tips: Getting the correct resources for the 3D printer and 3D Scanner will take some technology development above and beyond what your industrious villagers provide to you. You will likely need to create a Machining Mill, an Extruder and an Injection Molder to be able to craft the necessary components for the 3D printer. During Technology Level 2, your villagers will provide access to many of the relevant raw materials into the Community Chest, which is one of the Community Buildings. While it is technically possible to construct a 3D Printer and 3D Scanner during the First Age (Dirt - Technology Level 1), the grind to achieve all of the relevant raw materials will likely waste too much of your valuable time during the competition. It is HIGHLY recommended to "Tech Up" to Technology Level 2, before attempting to build the 3D Printer and 3D Scanner.

Polycraft World 3D Printer Mechanics

A 3D printer can print arbitrary sized structures. As of Round 1 of the 2021 BEST 3D Printing Challenge (Oct. 2021), the largest Blueprint that is scannable is 12 x 12 x 12 Polycraft World blocks. However if you "happen to find" a larger Blueprint in the world, it should still print, as long as your Print Area is clear. There are several blocks that can be printed over:

• air blocks
• grass
• flowers
• mushrooms

Other blocks will simply be skipped and the printer will "fill in" the areas that it is able to print. Today (10/2021), we do not perform a check to ensure that the build area above the block to be printed is clear. This behavior may change in a future release. There is a list of blocks that cannot be scanned with the 3D Scanner and thus cannot be printed. These include:

• all beds including Polycraft Beds
• any multi-block items (such as doors)
• redstone circuits
• Polycraft Inventories including Machining Mills and Community Chests

Other classes of blocks are attached to other blocks. Depending on their orientation, some print configurations will print properly and some will not be able to print parts in open space without first printing the block they are attached to. If you scan and print in the same direction and print twice, you may get the results you seek.

• torches
• redstone torches

Some notable exceptions include Blueprints that you find in the world. Some of these may allow the printing of blocks that cannot be normally scanned. These include items like

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3D Scanner

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