A good way to showcase additive technologies such as those being featured here at the RAPID 2011 show in Minneapolis is with "artistic" pieces such as the "Vegetable Lamb," by www.HeatherGorham.com. She says the sculpture is her interpretation of an ancient myth of botany, a plant that grew living lambs instead of flowers. The lambs could bend down and eat the surrounding plants. Once a lamb ate all the surrounding plants, it would either eat the stalk to free itself and join the herd, or shrivel up and die (if the lamb was not devoured by wolves first.)
Gorham sculpted her piece using FreeForm software from Sensable (www.sensable.com).The piece was printed on a SLA 7000 machine in Somos NeXt material by DMS Functional Materials.