How 3-D printing is helping make Philadelphia the 'workshop of the world' again

Sometime back in the 1880s, Philadelphia earned itself the designation of the "workshop of the world," owing the honor to its diverse manufacturing output spread across a number of small enterprises in the city. That reputation has since faded, but looking at the box of mostly operated-on animal skulls sitting on the corner of Dr, Evelyn Galban's office at Penn Vet, it would seem we're back on the right track.

"Just wait until I get dinosaurs," she says. "I am very excited about that."

The skulls, in fact, are made from a combination of gypsum and what amounts to crazy glue, and come from the resulting collaboration between Penn Vet and Penn's FabLab after Dr. Galban began wondering about what role 3-D printers could play in veterinary medicine. Increasingly, that answer seems to be surgery practice and training for future doctors.

Galban, though, is just one of many Philadelphians that have begun to harness 3-D printing's seemingly endless applicability—and, increasingly, that trend could stand to put back on top as the world's leading workshop. This aspect is partly, in fact, the main theme is this year's TEDxPhiladelphia conference, which kicks off today.

"Philadelphia has been a city of innovation since the birth of the country," says Brandon Boulden, 3-D-Printing manager for Graduate Hospital-based NextFab Studio. "And I believe many individuals are tapping into a spirit that is still present in citizens here."

Situated among groups of businesses that range from contractor supply to interior design, NextFab helps everyone from companies to artists and entrepreneurs with producing prototypes and pieces that otherwise would be too expensive or time-consuming to make to be viable. But while much of NextFab's output is in prototyping, Boulden has noted an increase in pieces printed on their devices going up for sale immediately—a national trend that some analysts see rising to as much as 50 percent of total production in the near future.

"Some of the prints that we have created are going directly to market as the final product, and are not just a step in the development process," he says. And he's not just talking about the figures they printed for that Cut Copy video earlier this year.

Maria Eife of Maria Eife Jewelry, as Philly's foremost 3-d printed jewelry maker, can attest to that fact. A 2000 graduate of Tyler's Jewelry, Metals and CAD-CAM program, Eife designs and produces a variety of 3-D printed and cast pieces in geometric, fractal flavors that are as unique as the technology that manufactures them.

"We took CAD classes where you learn to make things in three dimensions on a computer, virtually," she says. "The department just didn't own a printer yet."

Tyler eventually got a 3-D printer in 2005 via a grant from Tiffany & Co., but Eife began her 3-D printed jewelry line just a few years ago after producing a series of laser-cut felt necklaces at NextFab. With her training in CAD-CAM and familiarity with 3-D printing from her work at NextFab, Eife calls the jump to 3-D printed pieces her "next logical step."

"It's been in my repertoire of skills for a while now, but only in the last few years have I gotten to start making jewelry affordably that I can sell," she says.

The result has been a series of impossibly intricate earrings, bracelets, bangles, rings and baubles that quite literally have never been seen until now in the fashion world. However, that's not to say that 3-D printing's usage in Philadelphia is limited to cheaper products and better animal care.

Over in West Philly at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Drs. Jorge Galvez and Yoav Dori are probing 3-D printing's applicability in developing prosthetics for children and model hearts for pre-surgery examinations. Like Dr. Galban, they also hope that their work will help increase the quality of medical training, and with Philly already an "Eds & Meds" city, the boon in that area is easy to see. Still, though, patients stand to benefit first and foremost.

"Printing an exact replica of the skull or temple bone and cavities is extremely useful," Dr. Dori says. "It can help surgeons do the procedure before they get to the operating room. That way, the patient can spend less time in the OR under anesthesia."

Non-surgical applications abound in medicine as well, with Dr. Galvez initial forays into creating children's prosthetics and oral airways already showing promising results. Traditionally, children with a need for a prosthetic have inherited devices designed for adults, and the shrinking process for kids' sizes doesn't always work—even, says Dr. Galvez, in simple applications like a brace. 3-D printing, though, is helping to change that here in Philadelphia already.

"These problems are all over pediatrics," Dr. Galvez says. "And there is never going to be a demand to fill the need because you only ever really need a couple of a particular size—there is just no incentive for manufacturers to fill the market. So 3-D printing is attractive to pediatrics because you can literally make what you need."

But for all this contemporary innovation going on all over the city, 3-D printing is anything but a new technology. 3D Systems Corp. released the first working model back in 1984, but it and many successive models remained far too expensive to nurture the explosion we've seen recently. Around 2010, as a New York Times report notes, printers that once cost $20,000 dropped to around a $1,000 price point. As the price dropped, more individuals could get their hands on machines, and therefore the field was opened up to an influx of fresh, innovative ideas.

Still, though, 3-D printing is not yet a mature technology. Machines are still somewhat finicky and expensive, which can discourage beginners when their first print doesn't come out the way they want. But for Brandon Boulden, the main hurdle keeping 3-D printing from becoming a household technology is the difficulty in using CAD-based software to actually design an object.

"Fortunately," he says, "there are websites that are virtual part libraries. With sites like these, technical training, and cheaper, easier CAD programs, I think we will eventually see 3-D printing become as ubiquitous as the microwave."

A view that is, admittedly, idealistic. Still, though, these people and companies highlighted here barely scratch the surface of Philadelphia's entry into the 3-D printer manufacturing market. Great work in the subject is also being done around the city at The Department of Making and Doing, SteamWorkPhilly, Impact Hub, the Hacktory, and others—whether it be education or actual making. There is, in effect, no shortage of early adoption for 3-D printing here in Philadelphia, despite any perceived technological shortcomings.

Making the most out of new technologies, though, seems to be in our genetic makeup. At the height of our presence as a manufacturing power between 1880 and 1920, Philly employed about a quarter million industrial workers on average—a large proportion for the time, and no small part of our "workshop of the world" moniker. However, with enough room, 3-d printing stands to turn everyone into a potential industrial employee—at least, should they become "as ubiquitous as the microwave," as Boulden suggests.

Given our historical reputation in the area, here wouldn't be a bad place for that to start. But, then, it looks like it already has.