3D printing in the Dragon’s Den (self driving car conversion kit)

X-Matik Pitching their Self Driving Car Concept with 3D Printed Hardware

Imagine you drive to a party, have a couple too many drinks and you then begin to wonder how to get home. The idea of cabbing home only to have to retrieve your vehicle the next day seems, well… terrible.

But what if your existing vehicle had the ability to drive itself home when you couldn’t? A Canadian company called X-Matik has developed a kit that can turn any vehicle into an autonomous one.

Lanecruise 4 by X-Matik showing their autonomous vehicle product in action

Years ago if you were to talk about self-driving vehicles, people would think you were living in a fantasy world. Recently the leap from concept to reality has been bridged with company efforts to innovate in this futuristic realm.

While there are many successful and fully functional driverless vehicles, there still lies an issue of accessibility, proof of concept (the convincing factor) and cost. For millions of people that step of jumping from their current vehicle to an autonomous one may seem like many years too soon.

However, X-Matiks latest development LaneCruise L4 is a consumer product that can be installed and downloaded right into your own vehicle. With a tech package consisting of hardware and software one will have the ability to convert their car into a fully autonomous one.

We at Custom Prototypes had the pleasure of working with X-Matik to build some of their hardware components in order to prepare them for this weeks episode on Dragon’s Den.

For their demonstration pitch they required multiple parts that were both high resolution and structurally sound. For this we used a 3D printing process called stereolithography which formed the parts by solidifying liquid resin with an ultraviolet laser.

3D printing is a great solution for people that need one-off prototypes as it doesn’t entail a hefty cost that other alternative manufacturing methods can have. Over the past 20 years we have had countless inventors and entrepreneurs utilize our 3d printing services with intentions on pitching their prototype ideas to possible investors.

Will X-Matik seal a deal with investors? Stay tuned and watch Dragon’s Den this Thursday at 8pm on CBC.