Canadians Create World's First 3D-Printed Camper - Geek.com

Nine days and hundreds of feet of plastic filament later, a team from Canada has succeeded in creating the world’s first 3D-printed camper. Printing wrapped up last week in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

That’s just a scale model at the top, of course. The real thing is much larger. In fact, it smashed the world record for the largest indoor 3D print. The previous best was a respectable 144 cubic feet. The camper nearly tripled that volume at 507 cubic feet.

3D printing a camper gives it a couple major advantages over traditional manufacturing methods. One is that it’s seamless, which greatly reduces the risk of water infiltration. Given how much people generally spend on a camper and how long they plan to own them, there should be plenty of demand for one that’s not as susceptible to mildew and rot.

The other big advantage is that this thing is about as customizable as a camper could ever get. As long as your vision can be translated into an STL file for plotting, pretty much anything goes. One that creator Randy Janes is particularly excited about: a hatch in the floor for ice fishing.

Hey, there’s no reason you should limit your camper use to the summer months… especially when you really only get two and a half of them a year between the annual thaw and freeze. A camper is a big investment, and Jones clearly believes you should get your money’s worth.

There is one significant downside: 3D printing the 500-plus cubic foot camper took about nine days. That’s no problem for a proof-of-concept, but it’s a tad slow for commercialization. Now that the team has proven it’s doable, they can focus on shortening the delivery window.

Janes is hopeful that he’ll have the first batch of 3D-printed campers ready for sale before the end of this year.

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