Old and busted: Chess pieces that don't come together to form an ultimate fighting robot. New hotness: Chess pieces that do exactly that.

Joseph Larson's 3D-printable Action #Chess set doubles as a mecha construction kit, with knights that flip over to form feet, and bishops that serve as arms and hands.

King: "And I'll form ... the head!"

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F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab have teamed up to create a set of 3D-printed toy adapters that connect pieces from popular construction toys like Lego, Tinkertoy and K'nex.

The Free Universal Construction Kit works with 10 systems in total, and the patterns for each of its pieces are free to download from Thingiverse.

The kit's creators also envision future adapters for new construction toys, so that Duplo blocks and Lincoln Logs will always be able to interoperate with the next hot building system on the market.

Legally speaking, they feel they're on solid ground, because the patents for most of the toys have expired, and 3D-printing a design for your own non-commercial use isn't considered infringement.

Long story short, as long as you have a 3D printer that can handle the level of detail in these adapters, your K'nex and Lego bricks can finally play together after all these years.

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Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology have created a new kind of 3D printer, using a technique called "two-photon lithography," that allows them to print objects several times faster than similar devices.

"The printing speed used to be measured in millimeters per second – our device can do five meters in one second," explained TU Vienna's Professor Jürgen Stampfl.

The printer works by using a laser to harden a liquid resin and create a solid object. The technique was previously quite slow, but the Vienna researchers sped it up by guiding the laser with faster-moving mirrors, and printing from a special resin.

Working with a team of chemists, they developed a printing material whose molecules harden when they absorb two photons from the laser beam at once. Previous techniques could only create solid material one layer at a time, but the Vienna team's printer can create it anywhere within the pool of liquid resin, saving a huge amount of time.

The researchers claim their new printer has set a world record for 3D printing speed.

[popsci]