If you’re a maker, 3d printing is an incredibly useful tool to have in your arsenal. Not only can it help bring your projects to life faster, but it can also offer unique results that would be difficult (or impossible!) to achieve with traditional methods. In these blog posts, we’ll provide you with some essential information and tips regarding 3D printing for makers—including the basics of how to get started, plus creative tutorials for spicing up your projects. Whether you’re already familiar with 3d printing or are just starting out, these resources will help take your game-making skills even further!
Cornucopia: Digital Gastronomy is a project by two grad students working in MIT’s Fluid Interfaces Group. The goal: a consumer-friendly machine that prints food. (Spork not included…) Cornucopia is a concept design for a personal food factory that brings the versatility of the digital world to the realm of cooking. In essence, it is a […]
Devlin has posted a great tutorial on using OpenSCAD (Clifford Wolf’s fantastic, free CSG 3D modeling program) to model Hack a Day’s trademark “skull badge” from this year’s CES. I posted my own (much, much more basic) OpenSCAD tutorial a couple weeks back.
While small lathes are of relatively limited value in my opinion, I’ve gotta give it up to Thingiverse user cathalgarvey for designing and uploading the parts to print this motor-tool-powered, printable micro-lathe. As always, would love to see some video!
Check out these sweet laser-cut MAKE back issue boxes that Jonathan Danforth made and loaded onto Thingiverse. I like the look of MAKE magazine on my bookshelves but I wanted something to store them in that was similar to the holders I use for other magazines. MAKE’s (and CRAFT’s) unique form factor require a custom […]
Thiingiverse user natetrue created this printable version of user stickoutrock’s laser-cut cross-linked elliptical gear toy. Somebody post some video, please!
Sketchup is an easy-to-learn program for 3D modeling. While it gives you an easy way to design creatively, it is a bit more challening to design accurately. If you are going to make physical models of your designs, you will need to make them small enough to fit on the tool that will make the part. You can send the 3D models to a number of toos, including the ShopBot, CNC Mill and MakerBot, among others.
If you follow these pretty easy steps, you can get yourself and your students into the habit of designing accurately dimensioned objects. Here is a set of screenshots and a sample file that show the steps of this process.
Check out the work of Ottawa maker Andrew Plumb. A few months ago, he created the .stl of a four-stud disk, uploaded it to Thingiverse, prototyped it on his Makerbot and then sent it off to fabbing service Shapeways to be output in plastic as well as bronze-infused steel. In more recent experiment, Plumb used […]
