Mechanically functional 3D Printed clock
One of my favorite 3D print designs currently making waves is Thingiverse user syvwlch’s 3D printable clock. I recently spoke with syvwlch about his 3d printable clock.
“It started out as an attempt to understand escapements, a critical component of mechanical clocks with centuries of design history. I modeled one and it’s interaction with the next clock component in OpenSCAD.” (more…)
Computational Couture
[iframe: frameborder="0" height="410px" src="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rhymeandreason/continuum-computational-couture/widget/video.html" width="480px"]
Continuum is a new project by Mary Huang which allows you to design your own version of the iconic “little black dress” with the help of an interactive app and digital fabrication. The app transforms your drawing into a 3D model built from triangles. The triangles are then cut from black fabric with a laser cutter or plotter before being sewn into a dress.
Read more about the project on the Kickstarter page, and consider making a pledge to help it become a commercial reality. You can also try out the app (still in progress) for yourself.
Egg-Bot put to deliciously good use
We have been big fans of the Egg-Bot for some time now, and it is fantastic to see some clever applications filtering through from proud Egg-Bot owners.
Dan Newman posted this paradoxical set of instructions on Thingiverse. His apparently delicious omelet recipe is printed onto the very egg that is to become the omelet… quite a neat idea, although it does have the potential to create a conundrum for those whose egg supply (and perhaps short-term memory) may be limited.
Dan wraps up his instructions with this little reminder:
And remember, you can’t make omelets without breaking eggs.
Egg-Bot Omelet Recipe via BoingBoing
It pays to ponder…
UPDATE: Thanks so much to everyone for all of your guesses!
And congratulations to Annie Rawle in Australia, Alex Kam in Malaysia, and FormDeform in the US. You’ve won $50 in digital making!
Sitting in lasercut chairs around the 3D printed table, the Ponoko team often ponders “How can Personal Factory be more awesome?”
Well get ready, because that pondering has paid off (plus the work that came afterwards). In just a few weeks we are unleashing Personal Factory 5.
Think you know what’s up our sleeves? Your pondering could pay off too.
Take a guess at what’s coming for Personal Factory, and you could win $50 in digital making.
There are 3 ways to win:
1) tweet your guess with hashtag #PF5
2) leave a comment with your guess on this blog post
3) leave a comment with your guess at the Ponoko forum
Bring on as many guesses as you’ve got.
You don’t even have to be right to win!
We will choose one winner at random from each pool of guesses to each receive a $50 digital making voucher.
And stay tuned for some hint dropping next week.
Contest closes on Wednesday, May 11th at 10pm Pacific Time!
Win neat-o prizes from SketchChair!
UPDATE: Thanks so much for all of your awesome ideas! We’ll be contacting the winners soon.
In the meantime, you can see who won and check out all the ideas HERE.
The world of cookie cutter products is fading fast, but there’s still a lot of stuff out there that needs to be customizable.
And we were just kind of wondering…
What product do you really wish you could customize?
Your idea could score you a supercool CNC cut chair or some lasercut miniatures from our friends at SketchChair.
(more…)
Bringing 3DP to DC!
Today in Washington, DC, the 3D printing community is presenting to policymakers on the rise and implications of this buzzed about manufacturing technology.
3D/DC: 3D Printing Comes to the Nation’s Capital is hosting two panel discussions and live demonstrations.
Founders and execs from 3D Systems, the Association for Manufacturing Technology, Autodesk, Bathsheba Sculpture LLC, CloudFab, ExOne, Fab@Home, Interactive Fabrication/ Computational Design Lab, Makerbot, Makergear, Materialise, Metrix Create:Space, Open 3DP at University of Washington, Rael San Fratello Architects, RepRap, Research Technology Enterprise Initiative, Reverse Space, Shapeways, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and Z Corp will be there as well as Ponoko CEO David ten Have.
Last year was a big one for 3D printing, and there’s been speculation as to whether 2011 will be its spotlight year.
With 3D printing on the cover of the Economist earlier this year and now 3D/DC at the capital, 2011 is just the beginning.
Multitouch modeling fun with STL export
Beautiful Modeler is a tool for creating 3D models using multitouch input from the iPad. Its release was covered here in November, but today I’m going to show how you can try it for yourself.
I’m using Xcode 4.0.2 and iOS 4.3.2 (the most recent releases as of this writing), so your mileage may vary if you have different versions. For simplicity I’ll use direct links to all of the necessary downloads where possible, followed by links to their original sources.
It’s a long process, but I guarantee that using your iPad to manipulate 3D models is awesome. 
(more…)
Sewing friendly laser cutting you should try
When you think “laser cutting”, the product that most likely come to mind are rigid cut out shapes or 3D objects assembled from flat planes. However, laser cutting can work on a more tactile level, and there are materials available in the Ponoko/RazorLAB/Formulor/Vectorealism catalogues that enable a completely different kind of 3D making – sewing. I’m talking soft materials, such as various thicknesses of leather and felt. We have examples and free design files for each of these materials: russet leather camera case, felt shoulder bag, upholstery leather wallet
One of the great advantages of using these materials, is their fast cutting time. As usual, there are a few tricks when it comes to working with leather and felt, especially when you’re designing for sewing.
Here are a few points to consider:
MYI projects under the cut: (more…)
Free T & tickets to Bay Area Maker Faire 2011
For the 4th year running we’ll be front and center at Maker Faire, the world’s biggest DIY festival, in San Mateo, May 21-22 2011.
We’ll be introducing a number of big surprises, and this means we’ll need some assistants to pull on a Ponoko t-shirt and strut their stuff.
So if you want to get an insider’s look into what we’re up to and assist us in any way, you’ll get a free T and free entry to Maker Faire.
Yep.
To volunteer please drop a line to Nic (our event boss for the past 4 years) right here, about now … nic.ward-able AT ponoko DOT com.
We’re looking forward to another amazing weekend together.
What do preserves and digifabbing have in common?
Last Saturday’s Craft2.0 fair had Ponoko smeared all over it. Sticky, sweet and delicious, where the former and the latter aptly describe the JamOff jam making competition, while the middle is just as appropriate for the featured designs. Chromatophobic, Freestylen and Super Very proudly displayed their allegiance to Ponoko in form of banners, which attracted many questions from the public.
Keep reading…
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