A very exciting update came from aviation sector. Claimed to be the fastest drone ever made, Teal made its first seen. Said to accelerate up to 70 mile in an hour, this drone’s one of the supporters in manufacturing process was 3D.
3D printing contributes to many segments of production and most of the time its realizes what once was a dream. George Matus whose biggest dream was designing a drone, made his dream ‘Teal’ come true thanks to 3D printing’s advantages.
Upon moving to Salt Lake City two years ago, he started Teal with the help of some pre-seed money from angel investor Mark Harris. The dream was simple in its ambition: to develop an incredibly fast, powerful, functional and accessible drone that is suitable for every conceivable drone application. Development was subsequently further supported by backing from the Thiel Fellowship, a foundation started by tech billionaire Peter Thiel that gives a $100,000 grants to young people who want to build new ideas and products. Matus’s plans were so convincing that he even secured $2.8 million during a completely under-the-radar seed round led by Pelion Venture Partners.
For the body development, Matus enlisted the help of the Dallas-based product developer Gossamer, founded by Chris Hsiao. And as Hsiao explained, the challenge was in tailoring the legs, covers, battery cases and frames to suit the very specific list of needs and limitations Matus was envisioning. To realize this, Hsiao therefore purchased a MakerBot 3D printer to bring rapid iterating, real-time decision-making and extensive prototyping opportunities to the table. 
“The speed is the first thing you notice. Typically, it takes us days to create new models in foam or wood, and outsourcing can take weeks. Using our Replicator, we were able to have prototypes within a few hours,” Hsiao shares. This helped Hsiao speed up ideation and iteration, which kept him on track for this project’s deadlines.