When Houston Rockets star KJ Martin competed in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest this past weekend, he did so with the help of Chicago 3D printing startup General Lattice.
Martin used what General Lattice called the first 3D-printed Airless Prototype Basketball in the competition in Salt Lake City.
Martin may not have came out victorious, but Nick Florek, co-founder and CEO of General Lattice, thinks it helped put the product on center stage and showcased the capabilities of additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing.
General Lattice worked with EOS, Dye Mansion and Chicago-based Wilson Sporting Goods Co. to design the playable 3D printed basketball, which nearly fits the performance specifications of a regulation basketball, including its weight, size and bounce, but does not need to be inflated because it is made of a black, see-through lattice.
Founded in 2019, General Lattice designs and builds digital material solutions that it hopes will help enable creators like Wilson to push the boundaries of innovation and take 3D printing to the next level.
General Lattice worked with Wilson Labs to create and design the ball, providing computational design services, in the company's innovation center near O'Hare.
While additive manufacturing has been around for several years now, Florek says it's not nearly as developed as some of the traditional manufacturing methods that have been used for hundreds of years so it's still in the early stages in terms of identifying all the areas that the technology can be used for.
"I would project that within the next five to 10 years, we will start to see additive as a true means of production," he told Chicago Inno.
Much like traditional leather basketballs, Florek admits that it won't "replace everything," but he expects for it to become more prominent as the technology develops further.
"I think a good way to look at 3D printing is that it's another tool in the toolbox for manufacturing," he said. "The more that we can 'productize' digital materials in a way that they become comparable to existing materials, the more I think customers will be able to adopt them around."
General Lattice wants to provide a foot in the door for companies and customers that want to get into 3D printing.
"I think like there's a lot of people who are excited about 3D printing and want to use digital materials, but they don't necessarily know where to start. And so we offer both software and services to help customers engage with these digital materials," he said.
