Seth

Based on the different colors, I'm going to guess that each piece was printed separately. I can't wait until we can print the whole thing in one pass! - Gabe

Z-Corp printers can easily make objects like that in a single pass -- they basically have inkjet heads depositing colored glue onto layers of powder, and like ordinary inkjet heads they can print in full color. I don't expect the moving parts work very well, though. - ⓞnor

It wasn't me, but a friend of mine who's developing the printer. The car was from a test run, and I'm told they can turn out prettier if you care about the outcome, rather than about testing the printer. I think it was in one pass. Indeed, it is Z-Corp. And no, the parts don't move. - Seth

They can look slightly prettier, and you can soak them in epoxy, but they never *quite* shed that whole "bunch of powder glued together" look. If you've ever seen the Toy Story zoetrope (on display at Disney currently) -- http://www.flickr.com/photos... -- those figures are all made with a Z-Corp printer, and look about as nice as you can possibly make them look. - ⓞnor

Oh, my comment was predicated on the assumption that the thing worked. - Gabe

"that whole "bunch of powder glued together" look." - sounds like a problem for a surface coat of primer or thinned modelling putty. I suppose that doesn't exactly scale. - Andrew C

I want to like China, ancestral homeland and all that, but sheesh, why not have it done locally? Actually, are there any steel mills close to SF? Maybe transporting it by train or truck would be more expensive than ship? - Andrew C

Say, under the current "made in X" labelling laws, wouldn't the bridge still count as being made in the US, since the constituent parts were assembled there? - Andrew C

I have a few family members I need to show this to. Maybe it should be in the "Welcome to the Internet" pamphlet everybody gets (or at least should get). - Cyrus Lendvay

Cyrus, FriendFeed is a better place to share random funny emails. - Private Sanjeev