We’ve been checking out a lot of videos this week to get our heads around 3-D printing and the state of the art. Here are a few that made us think.

This one is a good primer on 3-D printing and is also a call for entries in the 3-D for Development (3d4D) Challenge, a competition that encourages innovation to help deliver social benefits and relieve poverty in the developing world. “The Challenge aims to find transformational uses for additive technology that deliver real social benefit in the developing world,” say the members of techfortrade, the UK-based charity that is sponsoring the competition.

Courtesy Youtube user Econolyst.

How to get noticed if you’re looking for a job in the additive manufacturing industry:

Courtesy Youtube user durgledoggy.

This next one is interesting for two reasons. First, you can see the amazing artwork of architect and designer Neri Oxman, a professor at MIT’s Media Lab. Second, Oxman’s pieces highlight an Objet multimaterial printer. Experts in the field see the ability to seamlessly print an object comprised of more than one material as the next evolutionary step for 3-D printing technology.

Courtesy Youtube user ObjetGeometries.

Check out this report by the BBC on a working bicycle laser sintered from nylon powder. Or this laser-sintered violin:

Courtesy Youtube user simonhewittjones.

Finally, did you know that Invisalign invisible braces are made using 3-D printers? Neither did we. They use production printers from 3D Systems.

Courtesy Youtube user InvisiGrow.

Top image: 3-D printing on display at the 2006 Maker Faire by Bathsheba Grossman. Image courtesy Flickr user marymactavish.

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Michael Keller is the Managing Editor of Txchnologist. His work has appeared online and in newspapers, magazines and books, including the graphic novel Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Reach him at mkeller@groupsjr.com.