10 Insane Things You Didn't Know 3D Printers Could Do

Heads up: in 20 years, you'll wake up and download the shoes you're planning to wear while brushing your teeth. Then, you'll walk to the kitchen to eat the breakfast burrito your burrito robot made you. Finally, you'll head out the front door of your house—an all-plastic abode made out of recycled plastic. Oh wait—actually, you could do that right now. Because the batshit insane technology for all this already exists.

Weirded out? Here's a list of the 10 craziest things you didn't know 3D printers could do, ranked from least to most mind-blowing:

CREATE REALLY EXPENSIVE ARTSY LAMPS

[via The Daily Beast]

Essentially: An MFA student from London's Royal College of Art named Geoffrey Mann made this lamp by capturing the flight of a trapped moth inside a light fixture, and printing out its path using plastic. His entire show was apparently bought out within hours by "famous people."

FIX YOU A BURRITO

[via The Creators Project]

Essentially: Last month, an NYU grad student invented a prototype for his thesis project called Burritob0t—a machine that can spit out burritos customized to your idea of the perfect ratio of beans, guacamole, sour cream, and all that goodness.

FASHION YOU SOME GREAT KICKS

[via The Creators Project]

Essentially: An art student from the Royal College of Art in London printed these incredibly swag sneakers for his thesis show. Possibly the fastest sprint shoes ever made, they weigh just 96 grams.

MAKE A CAR

[via The Creators Project]

Essentially: The world's first printed car—a hybrid that runs on gas and ethanol—was given the burp-sounding name "Urbee." It debuted in Vegas (of course), and was made entirely using thermoplastics.

GIVE YOU DRUGS

[via PCWorld]

Essentially: One day, you'll be able to print out your own Adderall. Or MDMA. Or any other drug that you "need," thanks researchers at Scotland's University of Glasgow. The team is working on a pharmaceutical printer that will allow you to dispense your own chemicals and pills to store them in. Try not to get too excited.

BUILD YOU A HOUSE MADE OF PLASTIC

[via WebProNews]

Essentially: A giant 3D printer invented by a University of Southern California professor can build an entire house—plumbing included—in 24 hours. And it'll construct it out of recycled plastic. When this thing moves from the drawing board to the real world, it's going to create a ton housing for lower-income families, and solve global warming. Sort of.

USE HUMAN CELLS AS INK

[via DVICE]

Essentially: Take some stem cells, load them into a cartridge, and print them onto a gel-like substance called "bio-paper." The cells will basically bind with the paper, and turn into an all-purpose liquid sludge (ew) called "bio-ink"—an all-purpose agent that can be used to create new human organs.

SPIN BLOOD VESSELS OUT OF SUGAR

[via PCWorld]

Essentially: A team of researchers from MIT and UPenn used sugar to create a temporary structural grid that they then poured living cells into (ie. "bio-ink"). Once the sugar dissolved, solid tissue was left over, which formed a network of vessels ready to pump some blood.

DUPLICATE YOUR KIDNEY

[via TED]

Essentially: Last year, surgeon Anthony Atala gave one of the craziest TED talks ever—right on stage, he printed out a human kidney using a tissue sample from an existing kidney. The printed organ was nearly identical to the original, thus bypassing the risk of organ rejection during a transplant.

CLONE A MUMMY. SERIOUSLY.

[via Heritage Key]

Essentially: There are now two King Tut mummies in the world. While the original is still chilling in Egypt, a cloned Tutankhamun is now on display in New York. It was cloned using a Belgian 3D printer called Materialise, which is usually reserved for printing things like cars and dresses. It gets weirder: after cloning, an artist used makeup to make it look "prettier."

We know there’s tons of other crazy ass 3D printing going on out there. What did we miss? Add your examples of the weirdest 3D printed items in the comments below!

@MichelleLHOOQ