The video opens with a hand pushing a button on a printer. It zooms out to show a 3D printer printing material, interspersed with shots of a man designing a 3D object on a computer.

Then a title screen appears: "Manufacturing in a Minute: Additive Manufacturing." The video cuts to Blake Marshall, Physical Scientist, who stands in front of a white board while talking.

Additive Manufacturing, also commonly known as 3D printing, is a process that allows you to create physical, three-dimensional objects directly from a computer design file.

One of the most exciting things about additive manufacturing it allows you to innovate quickly.

You can try designs over and over and over again, and actually test out a physical printed part at the end of your design cycle when you would typically, simply have one chance at making a functional part.

There’s a whole wide range of materials that are currently being used in 3D printing including polymer composites, metals, ceramics, and other much more exotic materials like foams, gels, and even living tissue in certain cases.

We’ve 3D printed a wide variety of different objects.

From large things such as houses all the way down to functional nozzles and heat exchangers for industry.

All of which were enables by the flexibility, the speed, and the new designs that 3D printing allows.

The Advanced Manufacturing Office partners with Oak Ridge [National Laboratory] and other national laboratories alongside industry to help solve some of the more fundamental, science-based problems that are presented with 3D printers today.

And our main goals are to improve the energy productivity of US manufacturers and improve the competitiveness of US manufacturers, and also provide opportunities for high paying, high impact jobs and technology.

The video closes with: Learn more at energy.gov/eere/AMO.