Day 10-12: SFF '07

UT Austin

Monday through Wednesday I was attending the 18th annual Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF) conference at the UT Austin campus. For those of you not particularly familiar with the field, this conference deals with the latest and greatest 3D printers (printers that actually print out 3D, usable parts!) and techniques thereof.

UT Campus

I won't bother to summarize too much of what went on, because I would probably bore most of you. But most of the talks were at least interesting enough to stay awake, and my talk (20 minutes, to ~ 50 people) went really well. I had several professors whom I had never met before come up to me in the hours following to ask further question about what I was doing. Even one guy from industry (he is the industry guru for 3D printing stuff... he was the opening keynote speaker and he compiles a well respected review of the 3D printing industry every year) was very interested and seemed to "get it".

Older part of UT campus

Fortunately, One of the other guys from our lab (google "Fab at Home") was there, so I knew someone else there. Monday night was a banquet at a fancy hotel, and Tuesday night was dinner at Stubbs, an iconic local Texas BBQ place. Wednesday after the conference, I walked around a little, and made it down to the Texas state capital, which happened to be only about 6 blocks from the south edge of the UT campus.

Texas State Capital

The dome of the Texas State Capital