fun + easy CAD / fun + easy contest

Did ya hear that Tinkercad released the newest version of their awesome, easy, browser based CAD tool? And guess what; you can send your Tinkercad design directly to Ponoko to have it 3D printed!

Tinkercad is super fun, easy to use, and you can make all kinds of stuff with just 3 simple design tools. We really want you to try it out, so we’re having a little contest to give away a pack of nine 3D printed material samples!

How to enter

---

1. Go to the App Gateway and find the Tinkercad app.
2. Design something with Tinkercad.
3. Tweet a pic of your design to @Ponoko and @Tinkercad with the hashtag #3Dprinting.

Prize

---

One pack of 3D printing material samples from Ponoko. Your pack will contain a sample of each of the following materials: Durable Plastic, Rainbow Plastic, Superfine Plastic – White, Stainless Steel, Gold Plated, Durable Gloss – Black, Durable Gloss – Ivory, Durable Fine Plastic, and Glazed Ceramic. That’s 9 material samples valued at $90 when bought individually!

Deadline & Restrictions

---

Contest runs through the month of February and ends February 29, 2012. One winner will be chosen at random on March 1, 2012. You may enter as many times as you like, but each Tinkercad design you tweet must be original. Good luck!

Get Started w. Your Tinkercad Design

---

Check out this three and half minute tutorial on using Tinkercad. Then hop over to the App Gateway, click on Tinkercad, design something rad, and tweet to win!

Posted in Contests + Competitions, Tools + Apps by Ponoko Team | 1 Comment

Make your own stuff using: App Gateway

Related posts:

1. 

   Vert Design Makes Smashing Things Easy.
2. 

   Material Short Stories
3. 

   Design custom gears with Gear Template Generator app
4. 

   Design and 3D print your own glasses!

Best of the Blog 2011 – Hardware

Since the beginning of history, people have been using tools to reshape their environment while in some sense being reshaped by their tools. Each new age has been defined by a new set of tools, a new type of hardware, from scraping sticks with rocks to cutting out forms with a laser. These are our best hardware articles from 2011.

#10 Stead i Cam: laser cut handheld camera crane

After watching a few minutes of shaky video most people are about ready to claw their eyes out (or turn off the video). Even best and newest super-HD camera with every imaginable feature will produce terrible video if it is not held steady. Unfortunately, commercial camera stabilizers are very expensive. Laser cutting to the rescue.
(more…)

Posted in Hardware, Taylor Gilbert by Taylor Gilbert | No Comments

Related posts:

1. 

   Top ten open source projects of 2011
2. ‘Github for electronics’ Upv

   Upverter: online hardware design tool
3. 

   Open source hardware from Microsoft
4. 

   Wired on Open Hardware (plus Being an Open Design Geek)

Best of the Blog 2011 – Open Source

The open source movement has come a long way since its beginning with computer software. Now we have open source electronic hardware, digital fabrication machines, and even farming equipment and houses. If it can be made, it can be open sourced. Here are our top ten articles about open source projects from 2011.

#10 Second Generation Open Source Laser Cutter

This is a new and improved version of a laser cutter project organized on Buildlog.Net. It’s compact enough for a desktop and nicely contained in a custom enclosure. All the plans are available for free and kits are also available.
(more…)

Posted in Open Source, Taylor Gilbert by Taylor Gilbert | No Comments

Related posts:

1. electronics made easy LittleBits is a co

   littleBits — educational open-source modular electronics
2. 

   Open source hardware from Microsoft
3. 

   WikiHouse – the open source house
4. 

   Second Generation Open Source Laser Cutter

plus a chance to win a sample pack of 3D printing materials!

Tinkercad has just released the latest version of their browser based CAD and 3D modeling application, and this version allows users to send their designs to Ponoko’s 3D printing services directly through the app.

Tinkercad’s got a new look, a new logo, and an improved user interface designed to get things done fast and to be quick to learn. With only three basic tools you can create a wide range of useful things. And best of all, you can send your designs to be 3D printed — all within your browser.

“We’re seeing a whole new range of CAD products being developed that make designing in 3D easier than ever,” says Ponoko CEO David ten Have. “Integrating those products directly with fabrication services means it’s also easier than ever to turn those designs into final products.”

Ten Have is very excited to see the addition of Tinkercad to Ponoko’s directory of product creation apps — the Personal Factory App Gateway.

(more…)

Posted in App Gateway, Personal Factory, Ponoko News, Tools + Apps by Ponoko Team | 1 Comment

Make your own stuff using: App Gateway

Related posts:

1. 

   Tutorial: getting started with the Personal Factory API in Python
2. talkin’ robots, 3D printing, and o

   DIY without owning the tools — Dale Dougherty of MAKE interviews Ponoko CEO David Ten Have
3. 

   Design and 3D print your own glasses!
4. 

   A new standard for how-to guides + a new formula for shared knowledge — iFixit announces Dozuki

Personal Factory is a cloud software platform for app developers to connect users directly to manufacturing devices to make custom goods on-demand.

It integrates product creation and customization apps with an established manufacturing and distribution system, so users can turn their designs into final products and have those products delivered to their door.

This is part one in a series of tutorials written by technologist Mark Schafer on working with the Personal Factory API in Python.

The full API documentation is here. All supplied examples use cURL.

The code for this tutorial can be found here: https://github.com/Neon22/Ponoko-API-from-python

(more…)

Posted in API Tutorial, Personal Factory, Programming by Mark Schafer | No Comments

Related posts:

1. 

   Arduino and Cellular Tutorial

Autonomous quadracopters build a six meter tower of polystyrene bricks.

While we are still disappointingly far away from the vision of the future presented by The Jetsons, every once in awhile we get just a little bit closer. Swiss architects Gramazio & Kohler and Raffaello D’Andrea built this six meter tall (19.7 feet) tower of polystyrene foam bricks using an automated system of quadracopter robots for their project Flight Assembled Architecture.

This video shows some of the building process.

Via Dezeen

Posted in Architecture, Taylor Gilbert by Taylor Gilbert | No Comments

Related posts:

1. Support the Kickstarter project for a sy

   Blocklets: a laser cut building system
2. 

   3D Print a Building
3. 

   Let’s Make Robots!
4. 

   A new building system using playing cards

2012 may be the year of 3D printing: Lisa Harouni on TED

We may be preaching to the converted, but for those who still aren’t convinced (or maybe even aren’t aware) of just how exciting 3D printing is, this recent TED talk gives a neat overview.

The speaker is Lisa Harouni, CEO of Digital Forming. Having specialised for a number of years pioneering software development for 3D printing applications, she is well placed to convince even the most sceptical of viewers that we are indeed on the cusp of a manufacturing revolution.

via TED

Posted in 3D Printing, Downloadable, Guy Blashki, Interviews, Thoughts + Opinions, Inventions, Open Source by Guy Blashki | No Comments

Make your own stuff using: 3D Printing

Related posts:

1. 

   Teaching your mother-in-law about 3d printing
2. 

   3D printing and the future of healthcare featured on Frontline Medicine
3. 

   Simulated 3d Printing On The Cheap
4. Researchers are already working on the r

   3D Printing: What Comes Next?

he Laser Cutter Roundup — a weekly dose of laser-cut love: #64

Hey, Sam here,back collecting the post from The Laser Cutter.

Above is a laser cut paper work from Nervous System.

After the jump, a pig, a dachshund, barnacles, a way to display business cards. (more…)

Posted in Ponoko News by Sam | 2 Comments

Related posts:

3D printing art & design exhibition in London!

The Send to Print / Print to Send exhibition has been running at the Aram Gallery on Drury Lane in London since January 13. It is exhibiting a range of avant garde 3D print designs. The exhibition includes works from the fields of architecture, industrial design, fashion, and product design.

Serie, Façade Model

The Aram Gallery uses this exhibition as a way to examine how designers’ processes are developing to accommodate new technological advances. We offer our visitors an idea of what 3D Printing is, and how it is being contemporaneously used. This exhibition is not intended as an exhaustive overview, but a cross-disciplinary pick and mix of examples.

(more…)

Posted in 3D Printing, Art, David McGahan, Functional Art + Objects, Furniture + Lighting, Jewellery by David McGahan | No Comments

Make your own stuff using: 3D Printing

Related posts:

1. 

   3D printing exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum
2. 

   3D printed and embroidered glasses
3. 

   Print your own velcro
4. 

   3d print wins Red Dot design award

Fantastic tutorial on how to build your own custom designs

Digital music production tools are so powerful these days that it seems you can compose and perform just about any kind of music entirely on a laptop. One of the weak points of digital production though is the physical interface: it’s hard to be expressive when you’re pushing your finger around a trackpad. You can have a lot more control if you have a few physical knobs and sliders and buttons. Enter the generic MIDI controller. (more…)

Posted in Electronics + Robotics, Hardware, Laser Cutting, Open Source, Programming, Rich Decibels, Software by Rich Decibels | No Comments

Make your own stuff using: Laser Cutting

Related posts:

1. Yet another creative project enabled by

   Tagtool – DIY Arduino Light Painter
2. 

   Machinate: MIDI Music Illustrated
3. DIY sous vide cooker Sous-vide cooking i

   Precisely-controlled low temperature cooking with Arduino
4. 

   CNC mill and Sixaxis controller