Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and we couldn’t just settle for any normal food or tech this holiday season.

You see, here at NeMAC, we love new technology (we even have an entire category on our blog dedicated to it), and manufacturing has brought us a lot of amazing technology over the years.

To send us into Thanksgiving this year, we collected a few cool examples of objects and products that can help us get into the Thanksgiving spirit thanks to the influence of manufacturing. Have a look for yourself–we think you’ll be impressed!

1. Laser etched bacon. , recently . The end result is pretty and delicious looking, and it’s cool to see a technology like laser etching used on something as simple as food. Now, if only we could find a laser etcher for our ham…
2. The 3D printed menurkey. This year is home to a unique holiday called “Thanksgivukkah.” What this basically means is that the first day of Hanukkah falls on the same day as Thanksgiving. But since it happens so infrequently (it’s never happened in our lifetime), there aren’t any products commemorating the occasion. A 9 year old decided to take matters into his own hands, and  It’s a combination of a menorah and a turkey, and would not have been possible without 3D printing. How cool is that?
3. MIT’s Cornucopia. Last, but definitely not least, we have an up-and-coming technology called the . Appropriately named like a symbol of Thanksgiving, the Cornucopia is a 3D printer for food. Although it’s still in the very early stages of development, the tech does have promise–. The Cornucopia is still in development, but the idea of 3D printed food is something we really enjoy thinking about–especially here on the week of Thanksgiving.

Especially with the help of technology like  (i.e. 3D printing), the next few years are shaping up to be pretty cool. Sure, you can 3D print a menurkey or a turkey, but at this point, they’re not edible. Imagine being able to 3D print your own turkey and have a meal without ever having to go to the store!

Manufacturing technology obviously has a lot of great applications for the future of tech and for the advanced manufacturing industry in general, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t have some fun along the way.

Although we may be a ways off from 3D printing our holiday dinner, we’re still pretty amazed at what kind of technology is already available today. You probably won’t find a laser etched ham on our table tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t all sit down and appreciate just how cool manufacturing is.

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