SandCASTLE: A Portable, Economical, Environmentally Friendly Habitat Printer for Low-Resource Communities

Overview

One of the biggest problems faced by humans is a worldwide lack of affordable housing. Alternative technologies for building houses exist, namely 3D printing houses using cement, but this technology also has its downsides: since the 3D printer has to extrude 100% of the house material, the gantry must be large and strong, making these machines quite expensive, and the main ingredient in the cement, Portland cement, has a significant environmental footprint and must be transported to the building site. In this project, I designed, built, and demonstrated a novel 3D printer that uses a simple and low-cost motor and chain system to move the extruder head. In addition, I created a novel method of construction that takes advantage of the on-site sand material, where layers of this sand are laid out, smoothed out with the extruder head, and resin is selectively dispensed, also with the extruder head. A new layer of sand is poured on top, and this process is repeated until a fully 3D object has been created. As a proof-of-concept, I used my prototype printer to fabricate several test structures, including a small house structure. Compared to existing house 3D printers the equipment is a tiny fraction of the cost and size, a much tinier fraction of the final house’s mass needs to be transported to the site and extruded, and the materials themselves are much more environmentally friendly.

Competition history

• CSEF 2026 Applied Mechanics (Senior Division) · Entry S-02-02

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