3D Printing & Imaging

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!

3D-Printed Bike

Eureka Magazine has a profile of this sweet ride, the whole thing “printed” from laser-sintered nylon powder. The ‘Airbike’ is made of nylon but, according to EADS, is strong enough to replace steel or aluminium and requires no conventional maintenance or assembly. It is ‘grown’ from powder, allowing complete sections to be built as one […]

How to CAD your own DogBot

Gavilan of On Shoulders is building an excellent looking 3d-printable dogbot, using openSCAD. But the awesomeness doesn’t stop there: He’s also producing a TV show about his projects, such as how to mill PCBs and print your own 3d printers. Well done! [via MakerBot]

GrblShields and Drawbots

GrblShields and Drawbots

Yesterday, we introduced the Syntheos grblShield, an Arduino Shield, created by MAKE contributors Riley Porter and Alden Hart, that allows you to control three stepper motors and run grbl, the motion-control language, for CNC operation. To show the grblShield in action (two motors of it anyway), Riley decided to try his hand at our Drawbot […]

Laser Cut Computational Architecture

Laser Cut Computational Architecture

Photographs of Michael Hansmeyer’s latest work in computational architecture could easily be mistaken for a computer rendering. Weighing about 2,000 pounds, Michael’s take on the classic Doric column is composed of between 8 to 16 million polygons created by repeatedly applying a smoothing algorithm to an existing column model. Surpassing the upper limit of most 3D printing facilities, Michael decided use a laser cutter to cut out around 2700 1mm think sections, which are then stacked one on top of the other.