Archimedes and 3D printing

Archimedes

Archimedes (from Wikipedia page)


3D printing seems to have some sort of turning point in the last few months. Lots of people know what it is and many are experimenting with it. This week I began teaching on my History of Mathematics module; yesterday’s lecture was about Archimedes. I would never imagined that the two could be combined but today I saw a preprint on the arXive on the combination of Archimedes and 3D printing. The paper has a brief history of Archimedes and his works (and quite a few elementary typos) and focusses on how to make models of his inventions, for example his water screw, and more mathematical objects using a 3D printer.

I don’t have access to 3D printing but would be intrigued to give some of the Archimedes models a go. Certainly, it would be great to have a supply of Platonic and Archimedian solids to show students. Has anyone out there tried something similar?

Get the newsletter!

Fancy a newsletter keeping you up-to-date with maths news, articles, videos and events you might otherwise miss? Then sign up below. (No spam and I will never share your details with anyone else.)