Just because they could – 3D printed robotic dinosaurs

Studying dinosaurs has never been top of our awesome jobs list (too many fossils and bones, not enough watching Jurassic Park) – until now. Dino boffins at Drexel University in the States have started using 3D printers to make massive replicas of everyone’s favourite ancient beasts by scanning real-life dinosaur bones as a guide.

Once they’ve been scanned in and pieced together, the 3D virtual T-Rex can be printed out as a handheld toy (we mean educational model) or a gigantic museum display.

The paleontologists also have robotic dinosaurs in their sights – printing and building these would allow the scientists to study more carefully how dinosaurs moved around and what posture they might have had. Sounds like a good enough excuse to us.

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Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home