Ceramic artist John Balistreri wanted to explore the world of rapid prototyping and the ways it could expand the boundaries of ceramic art so, he teamed up with Gregory Little at Bowling Green State University and BGSU’s ZCorp 3D printer. Balistreri and the team at BGSU experimented with with various clays and binders to create finished, functional ceramic objects that are compatible with ZCorp’s printing process. ZCorp technology closely resembles current inkjet technology, the difference is instead of printing on paper, it prints on increasing layers of powder material.

The teacup was created by scanning a hand-thrown teacup with a 3D scanner and reproducing the teacup with the printer. The teapot, however, was printed directly from a digital file, which opens up a number of possibilities that aren’t possible with traditional ceramic techniques. With traditional ceramics, the rendering of an object is limited by the pull of gravity. Because printed ceramics are surrounded by dry media, they are able to ignore gravity to create structures that are currently either impossible or unfeasible with today’s production technologies, such as engine parts, or superior water filters. All in all, printed ceramics look pretty cool and they might change the world.

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I happened across a new project to me while browsing the archives: Chumby was mentioned alongside Ponoko in an article in the New York Times back in November.

As the website says:

“The chumby is a compact device that displays useful and entertaining information from the web: news, photos, music, weather, celebrity gossip, webcams, sports scores — using your wireless internet connection”

The interesting thing to me is the extent of its open design: This section of their site is devoted to developers and offers resources for four areas of development: Hardware, software, widgets and crafts. The crafts page offers such delights as the patterns for the fabric elements of the housing, plus IGES files (that is, 3D CAD models) and engineering drawings for all the plastic moulded and metal parts used in the housing. Developers are encouraged and facilitated to modify the design as they wish. All you need is a 3D rapid prototyper! However there is some interesting discussion of more feasible options for creating your own casings on their forum here.

Interestingly, you don’t have to agree to anything to make use of the craft resources, but must click an agreement for access to their hardware (electronics) resources, such as schematics and PCB layouts. This agreement limits you from manufacturing and selling Chumby branded devices, but states; “Our goal is to give our Licensees latitude to modify their Chumby Devices and the Chumby software that runs on them, while preserving our business of running the Chumby Service”. Which seems fair enough.

Still, great opportunity here for any crafters/makers to get involved. Would be cool to see a laser cut variant!

Images from Chumbyfriends on Flickr

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Boingboingtv has a good video up in which Phil Torrone, editor of Make magazine, shows us some of his favourite projects from Maker Faire 2008 last weekend. These include soft toy electronics, ‘fablabs’ and the “brain machine”. Phil comments a little on the links between the maker movement, the affordablilty of digital fabrication, and the future of product personalisation.

Its good to get a little insight into the goings on at Maker Faire when I’m stuck over on this side of the atlantic - there’s such a vibrant network of makers out there, hopefully one day I’ll be able to attend a Maker faire myself!

Update:

There’s also an interesting perspective from the businessmen at Forbes.com here. Some chat with Make magazine, Bleep Labs and Mitch Altman on the reasoning behind DIY product success stories. The emphasis on the need for building a product community and sharing (and thus flexible licensing I surmise) is interesting.

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Nutre Arayavanish is a jeweller whose jewellery is informed by her interest in owner involvement.

She recently won the numbers of prestigious awards such as New Designer of the Year 2007 from the Business Design Center and Jewellery Designer of The Year 2007 (Student Category) from British Jewellers’ Assiciation (BJA). She explores the relationship between two-dimensional pattern and three-dimensional object, also the relationship between maker, jewellery and wearer in order to encourage the wearer to engage more with the piece apart from wearing them. The public perception or reaction to the jewellery when presented to them in different states of existence and brings new experience to wearers and viewers, and a new level of dimension to jewellery wearing.

Postable Jewellery is the spacial way of communication. It is a jewellery that can be send through mailbox, like a postcard. It is a flat-pack ring, assemble by slotting each components together. Presenting itself as a card and a gift, it can be a perfect present for any occasions.

available at magma books
What a perfect way to use Ponoko. By combining flat pack jewellery like this and laser etching you could design a business card that assembled into a piece of jewellery, what a great way to woo a potential client…..
Found via our buddy Josh Spear

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Michael Kutshbach is an Australian born, Berlin based artist who has consistently used emerging technologies and processes in his art practice. His work crosses over from abstract painting, to interior and graphic design, animation and sculpture.

For years Michael Kutschbach has explored an extensive array of diverse techniques, mediums and artistic approaches: from his beginning as an abstract painter to the ever-developing, pop-esque, self-sticking vinyl plots that cover walls, furniture and windows or, in a similar form but different materiality, appear on wallpaper or are applied to textiles, to the blobs that are formed from plaster. Over a longer period these appear in various sizes and groupings- – mono- chrome, colored or chromed, and their formal language is repeated contemporaneously in his digital animations.

Dorothea Jendricke, Berlin 2007

Having worked with Michael on a number of projects I am always inspired by his curiosity in approaching new technologies, materials and processes, and thought he would provide some great insights for Ponokosters.

Q1. Why did you switch from painting and traditional sculpture to using laser cutting and 3d modeling tools to realize your projects?

It was more the work that took me there than an interest in using the technology or a conscious shift. close to ten years ago now i was painting abstract pictures using the palm of my hand. pretty simple stuff, but it felt deeply connected to the history of modernist painting as i understood it.

I never really know what i am doing in my work. it is often very intuitive. So one of the strategies i employ is to flip the method (not the intent or subject matter) in order to get a better understanding of what i was doing at that time. in this case i wanted to go from a very direct and tactile way of working to a method that had some distance to it. keeping with the idea of the hand made gestural mark, i used a wacom tablet to draw lines and shapes that came to resemble the painted marks in some way. the tablet drawings were made as vector drawings and were later sent to a signwriting company to be plotted from adhesive vinyl and were then applied directly to the gallery wall.

this was my first step toward using new technologies in my practice. since then i’ve played around with laser cutting, rapid prototyping (although always too expensive for what i wanted to do), 3d animation and so on.
in the end i like to think of technology as a tool and not the subject. this way i have the freedom to keep flipping or negating the methods i employ and the format of the work.

More in next post

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In keeping with the theme for the design challenge let’s have a look at some puzzles designs. Diabolical is a small design firm from New Orleans, USA. Diabolical designs and makes puzzles using laser cutting along with a few other fabrication methods to produce their beautiful an unique pieces that double as both a piece of art and a puzzle. Its art you can play with. The puzzles are apparently very challenging to complete.

The ‘Synaptic Overload’ puzzle is made from solid steel with a highly polished finish. Each piece is polished in a different direction to create that textured visual effect and make the puzzle more difficult.

Teotihuacan is one of Diabolical’s acrylic puzzles. It uses some really interesting tetris like pieces.

Design/artist/owner Scott Fredrickson said it took him years to develop the puzzles from the original prototypes because he had a lot of trouble finding manufacturers who were willing to make them for him and didn’t charge an arm and a leg. I’m sure he would’ve appreciated the convenience of making with Ponoko.

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The Mimaki Tx2-1600 is just one of the many digital textile printers on the market, but the one I have had the most experience with. Before I get into how it works, here’s a very brief description and history of textile printing from The Colour Museum.
Basically, the image must be divided by color, and every part of the image that is a particular color will be burned into a screen. This must be done for each color to be printed. For those of you in the graphic design field, it can be compared to a separate screen created for each spot color. Thus for every color in a textile, the amount of labor and cost go up - which can be a big limitation for independent designers.

Inkjet printing brought the ability to put a color image on paper to the masses, and the same is happening with digital fabric printing. In the case of fabric, the printing is done with dyes not inks. And because the image is comprised of pixels, there is no limit to the amount of color. It is essentially CMYK, four color process with capabilities for four extra colors.

Before printing the printer must be set up and tested. There are two different sides of dye cartridge slots. This is because fiber reactive dyes are best for cellulosic or plant based fibers such as cotton, rayon, linen or hemp. Acid dyes are best for protein based fibers like wool and silk and for synthetic fibers like nylon and polyester. Plastic gallon containers hold the excess dye from the printing process.

Next, the fabric bolt is put onto the printer. Specially coated and paper-backed fabric that comes on a roll is first placed at the foot of the printer between two plastic ends that support the roll. In order to make sure that the fabric is aligned evenly, the edge of the paper lines up with a triangle on the printer. There is a laser that detects the edge of the fabric and keeps it aligned throughout the printing. This laser is adjusted by a switch on a box attached to the bottom of the printer. The fabric is then carefully pulled in an over-under fashion through 3 cylinders to maintain the tension and then fed through the top and clamped down.

(more…)

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Undoubtedly one of the great strengths of laser cutting is it’s ability to so accurately create delicate patterns and surface details. Laser cutting is now allowing designers of shoes and accessories to produce products with more intricate patterns than ever before. On iaac blog I found Designer Roberto Cavilli, who has designed a new collection of products using leather but with all the fine detail of lace. The cut-out areas in the leather allow sections of brilliant colour from the satin underneath to show through.

Another designer using laser cut patterns is Gabrielle Lewin. Her placemats available from MOMA have a flowing floral pattern laser cut into felt. She has also used the same techniques with her coasters.

The fiore partition wall is another great example from Fabrizio Bertero. It’s got a laser cut leaf pattern in steel. The patrician makes great use of positive and negative space. It’s interesting how such a hard and heavy material has been made to look so warm and delicate.

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Noel Wilson is an Industrial Designer who used Rapid Prototyping technologies to realize his innovative design, that turns a typical ‘banana box’ into a compact, foldable lightweight trolley for transporting shopping.

During the time Noel was working at Concentric Asia Pacific where the unit was manufactured. I asked him a few questions about the project and his time working for a rapid prototyping firm.

Q1. why did you chose to use 3D printing for the project?

I was curious, it was easy, and at the time it was accessible. It translated my virtual design into a tangible prototype without me having to screw around in a workshop, all I had to do was push the right buttons then sand and glue it all together. I knew it would give me a uniform professional finish that would take me way too long with any other method.

Q2. Did the process direct the design or the design direct the process?

Because of the simplicity of the design I think that it mostly directed the process, but I did know that the material (nylon/glass) was quite strong when over 6mm thick and built in the right orientation, and that it could give up to 1mm of visible detail, so perhaps it went both ways.

Q3. was there any enviro issues at play in the design, use of 3D printing

I think it balanced out in terms of environmental impact of the method and material, and my available alternatives. Energy saved here, and spent there. Toxicity avoided here, and caused there, etc etc. I would like to try some of the edible rapid prototyping methods, that sounds pretty eco-friendly and potentially nutritious.

Q4. What did you learn about 3D printing from the project

That it is rad. That it makes a perfect partner to CAD, and that it will play a much more significant role in the future of manufacturing due its potential perfection, speed, simplicity and material efficiency.

Q5. what was he most effective use of 3D printing you saw while working for a 3D printing firm?

Craniofacial test models of patients skulls so doctors could practice operating on them. Fluid dynamics models of underwater crafts (scaled down). The occasional clever plastic widgets would spark a wow. Small scale runs of parts were often cheaper to manufacture through SLS than injection molding.

Q6. what’s next on the cards for you?

I’m off to Malawi to work with the age old & original rapid prototyping materials, wood, mud and reeds (I am actually doing design related vocational training). I am also a cartoonist, and will continue developing my design skills & knowledge in the realm of humanitarian development.

O.K. From laser sintering to mud and reeds, sounds like a change of pace towards the slow design movement.

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You have all heard of Bug Labs with their open source modular device and Nokia’s metal phone but are you ready to design your own phone with OpenMoko?

OpenMoko have released the 3D CAD files for their phones so you can download, modify and 3D print your very own Neo phone. Although currently sold out, the Neo phone comes in two variations, the standard base, or the advanced developer model.

OpenMoko are one of the first to really use the adaptive mass customization method by freeing up the digital 3D files.

If you can’t open it, you don’t own it. Our first key unlocked the software, unleashing the community to recraft the code. Now, we free the case and share the keys to Industrial Design. Developers who want to re-craft the case are set free.
CAD files for all Neo branded handsets have now been posted.
When you use these files to create something creative, share it back. The files are posted under a ShareAlike Creative Commons license.

We want your mind in OpenMoko. Let’s work together. You’ll have our full support.
Now, Free Your Phone !

Since writing this post Matt Sinclair has written an extended piece on Mass Customization of Mobile (cell) Phones, Dang, it’s good…. and includes OpenMoko.

Keep an eye on his site We Don’t Do Retro

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