The First 3-D Printer

The First 3-D Printer

3-D printing is a wonderful type of technology. It can create vast things like animated model body parts and even foods. But where did it start?

Technically, I should know....and I do. I will explain to you how 3-D food printing came to be. 

In 1984, inventor Charles Hull made the first ever patent of a stereolithography apparatus (SLA). The machine was called Portal and it was the first model of what we see today as a 3-D printer.

It started that year as well as Hull had the idea that if you point a highly focused UV light at a goopy material called a "photopolymer", the material would instantly turn solid. If you did this layer by layer, you could "print" an object into existence. Hull dubbed it "stereolithography" and BANG! That's how 3-D printing was born. Charles Hull then went on to invent the 3-D printing company 3D systems!

By the way, Charles Hull was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame this year!

3-D printing will soon reshape the world and now we know where it came from. My new goal for my next blog is to find out more about the software behind how people have the ability to 3-D print food.