By Usually, making an acoustic instrument requires huge dexterity and craftsmanship. Recently, Amit Zoran, from MIT Media Lab, came up with a method that opens new possibilities. He used the Objet Geometries Connex500 3D printer and printed himself a flute he designed in a CAD software.
The printer is capable of using multiple materials for printing. A rigid material was used for the body, another material for the mouth piece, a soft one for sealing the air properly, and the springs were manually added after. The flute was printed in 4 parts in about 15 hours, based on the digital design, and after some additional assembly it was ready to be played. It was created to be comparable acoustically and ergonomically to the traditional flute. But, even if sounds acoustically perfect (as player Seth Hunter said), the researcher plans to improve his flute even further.
The method used for creating the flute could represent a huge advantage for research in the area. If you worry about what will happen to the craft and skill if this method becomes universal, you should know there hasn’t been a new popular acoustic instrument in over a century. And the main cause for that was the difficulty of producing many prototypes. But now, with the help of 3D printing, many ideas could end up as prototypes in a fast and inexpensive way. And, after dozens of variants of the same idea are created, each better than its former one, the final product can be manufactured by hand.
For more information on his work, you can go and visit Amit Zoran’s personal site.