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Video: 3D printed bike shown at CES goes on a road trip from Las Vegas to San Francisco

The designers are making ‘edits’ to their bike components throughout their trip

French 3D printing company Sculpteo recently displayed a digitally manufactured bike at consumer technology trade show CES 2017 in Las Vegas. Afterwards, the bike’s two designers set off on a 1,000km road trip to the firm’s factory in San Francisco to prove it is fit for purpose.

Sculpteo says its ‘Darwin bike’ is the first fully functional digitally manufactured bike. With 70 per cent of its parts made using 3D printing and laser cutting, they believe it serves as proof of what can be achieved with this approach.

Alexandre d’Orsetti and Piotr Widelka started working on the project at the beginning of November with d’Orsetti pointing out that the variety of components constituted a good test of 3D printing and laser cutting technology.

“This diversity of elements, with specific constraints (structure, comfort, settings, etc) allowed us to split the project into several sub-projects, and to choose, for each one of them, which technology and material would fit best.”

He added that digital manufacturing allowed them to produce finished parts, not just models or prototypes. “This means we can work with the materials and their specific characteristics, when conceiving our finished object.

“Having a real, finished object in your hands just two days after ordering it gives a great amount of flexibility and allows to go back and forth many times between different iterations until your object fits its final use.

“The bike we built is meant to keep adapting and improving according to the challenges it will face and the applications that will be made of it, as well as the feedbacks we’ll get about it.”

According to the latest update about their trip, from Friday, the two designers had been through the Mojave National Reserve and reached Bakersfield.

They were planning on spending a day in Bakersfield as they said this would allow them to get some new Sculpteo parts and make a few ‘edits’ to the bike before undertaking the rest of the journey.

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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3 comments

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DrG82 | 7 years ago
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Well that's all fun but I'll bet that the finished product is considerably heavier, more expensive, less effective and with a considerably larger carbon footprint than a normal bike.

These tech firms seem to think that the way a bike is designed and built was just plucked out of thin air rather than the truth which is that bikes are very highly engineered machines that have been developed over a century or more. The only application this technology really has is in prototyping or providing access to components where shipping is an issue.

Also, they seem to think that laser cutting a disc rotor is something amazing and new, haven't companies been doing this for ages?

 

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davel replied to DrG82 | 7 years ago
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DrG82 wrote:

The only application this technology really has is in prototyping or providing access to components where shipping is an issue.

 

Yes, I think this is more 'look what we can do with 3D printing!' rather than 'look what the future of bike manufacturing looks like!'.

Access to 3D printing itself needs to open up to the masses for it to really take its next leap.

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flathunt | 7 years ago
1 like

What an amazing video. 

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