3D Printed Boat
By Andrew Gregory. Posted
This article was originally published as part of HackSpace magazine, which has since been incorporated into Raspberry Pi Official Magazine.

The ‘Hello World’ of 3D printing is a little boat called 3DBenchy. Benchy models are usually made as a test to make sure that the 3D printer is calibrated properly.
They’re not meant to be actually sailed in – no one would set sail in anything that’s come out of a 3D printer, would they?
No one, that is, except the hardy souls at the University of Maine, in the USA.
This boat’s hull is 7.6 m long and weighs 2.2 tons, and was printed in 72 hours in one continuous print.
That was enough to earn it two Guinness World Records – it’s the world’s largest 3D-printed boat, and also the world’s largest, solid 3D-printed object of any kind.
Advertisement
The desktop computer you've been waiting for: Raspberry Pi 500+
To produce the world’s largest 3D-printed object, you need the world’s largest 3D printer. The one used by UMaine has a print volume of 30 × 6.70 × 3 metres, and uses plastic filament that contains 50% wood-fibre cellulose to achieve a strength comparable with steel.

Features Editor Andrew trawls the internet for Cool Stuff while keeping the magazine running smoothly.
Subscribe to Raspberry Pi Official Magazine
Save up to 37% off the cover price and get a FREE Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W with a subscription to Raspberry Pi Official Magazine.
More articles

Raspberry Pi 500+ in Raspberry Pi Official Magazine issue 158
We’re quite taken with Raspberry Pi 500+. But when you don’t need all that processing power, and just want a board that will make a plastic skeleton jump around in a terrifying manner, you’ll find Raspberry Pi Pico more than up to the job. There’s more terror in the magazine (which is only right as […]
Read more →

Win one of five Raspberry Pi SSD 1TB
Raspberry Pi prides itself on high quality hardware, and this 1TB Raspberry Pi SSD is no different. You can use it with a standard Raspberry Pi or even in your desktop PC – the choice is yours. We have five to give away and you can enter below Win 1 of 5 Raspberry Pi SSD […]
Read more →

Dual-screen cyberdeck
Twin screens mean you can code on one screen while watching David Bowie’s 1978 Musikladen show on the other.
Read more →
Sign up to the newsletter
Get every issue delivered directly to your inbox and keep up to date with the latest news, offers, events, and more.