August edition
It’s been another great month of new materials! There were 6 new materials for laser-cutting added to the overall Ponoko digital making network and 1 super cool new material for 3D printing.
Get all the details and pics after the jump.
Martha Stewart creates the Heartland
Just wanted to share this image from page 83 of last month’s Martha Stewart Living. It’s a heart made from lasercut shapes of the states! Did you even know you could form a heart from these shapes? I did not! Too cute.
Uncover Your World with Google Search
Google has a new interactive ad called Uncover Your World that demonstrates the features of its Google Search mobile app.
To create the ad, the Google mobile ads team and interaction studio GROW 3D printed every detail of an entire, miniaturized city block.
As you’ll learn in the making-of video shown below, the buildings, trees, signage, and tiny outdoor tables and chairs weren’t the only thing they ended up 3D printing for the stop-motion animated ad.
“Uncover Your World invites you to explore a virtual cityscape and learn via a self-paced storyline how the Google Search app can “uncover” facts about the world around you with features like search with your voice and search with your phone’s camera,” writes Clay Bavor, Product Management Director of the mobile ads team.
He also reports on the success of this 3D printed, interactive ad saying, “On average, users spend over a minute and a half interacting with the ad, and of those, 50% go on directly from the ad to download the app.”
new colors, new thicknesses
Our achromatic selection of polypropylenes in the NZ materials catalog has gotten a shot of color and a shot of metallic — plus new thicknesses!
We’ve now got a bright tomato Red in 0.8mm (0.031″) and 1.4mm (0.055″) AND a brushed Silver in a 0.8mm thickness.
There are two new thicknesses for Black, 1mm (0.039″) and 1.4mm (0.055″); two new thicknesses for Clear, 0.4mm (0.015″) and 1.4mm; and those same two new thicknesses for White.
Polypropylene is a flexible plastic with a matte finish on both sides. It’s great for lamp shades, stationery, cutting mats, and packaging. It’s also good for hinges and can be heat welded. Enjoy!
Laser cut business card grabs attention on Instructables
Imagine this. You’re at a business meeting, and as tradition would dictate, the time has come to exchange cards. How much thought have you put in to what you’re about to hand over?
Most of us go to a reasonable amount of effort with our business cards. Maybe it’s about trying to look professional, or maybe you are hoping to be memorable with your quirky or distinctive style. Well… making an impact and really grabbing someone’s attention within the confines of a 3.5′ x 2″ piece of cardboard just got a whole lot more interesting.
Artist-In-Residence at Instructables, Penfold Merton, used some clever gear template software to generate the mechanism for this remarkable and truly memorable laser cut business card -
…which doubles as a convenient gripping device for when you don’t want to handle other people’s dirty, less mechanical business cards.
The design continues to evolve, so be sure to check out the latest updates on Instructables where you can find all the info you need to build a robotic claw business card of your very own.
Via Instructables
The Laser Cutter Roundup — a weekly dose of laser-cut love: #43
Hey, Sam here. I’m back collecting this week’s posts from The Laser Cutter.
silhouettes seemed to be a theme this week.
Above is a laser-cut cover stock wedding invitation from Ian Collins – read more about it here.
After the jump, a robot, stuff for your fixed gear, a bookshelf, and some jewelry… (more…)
3d printed vocal tract update: We have audio!
A little while back, we featured some interesting explorations from Marguerite Humeau as she uses digital manufacturing technology to recreate the vocal tracts of exctinct creatures.
The showpiece of the project is the Mammoth Imperator installation (pictured above, photo by Clifford Sage).
Pictures may tell a thousand words, but sound really is key in this one. So here we go – perk up your ears for the Mammoth Imperator:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
We have it on good authority that the sound is much more powerful in person, to the point where you actually feel the vibrations in your chest.
The recording doesn’t quite capture this – rather than shaking you to your very core, the mammoth’s roar is perhaps more of a breathy sigh. Having said that, it is very, very cool to think that this sound – earth-shattering roar or not – has not been heard by human ears in over 10,000 years.
As Marguerite continues her research, more echoes of the past are sure to be revealed. What, or indeed who, will we be hearing next?
To know where you’re going you need to know where you’ve been…
Dr. Johnny Ryan is trying to apply the thinking of Moore’s Law to developments in 3D Print technology. Moore’s Law was described circa 1970 by Gordon Moore (co-founder of Intel Corporation) after observing that every 12 months the number of transistors (components on microchips) would double and thus increasing the available computing capacity. (more…)
New York City is one of the centers of the personal fabrication business… so we’ve got a lot of friends and customers who are in for a bit of a rough ride this weekend.
All of us at Ponoko wish the best for our NYC customers and the teams at Shapeways and MakerBot.
Stay safe. Kia kaha.
Cheers
The team at Ponoko
A unique puzzle from Nervous System
This unusually intricate laser cut wooden puzzle by Nervous System is unique in the truest sense. It was designed using generative techniques through Processing, so every single piece is unique and every puzzle made this way would be unique. If two or ten puzzles were made, no two pieces in any of the puzzles would be exactly the same.
This puzzle appears to be an experiment for an upcoming product. I can’t wait to see what kind of image they put on it.
Via Flickr
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