Get help making your first digital product with a free 45-minute ‘Quickstart’ webinar, presented by Ponoko every month.
The webinar is designed for first time Ponoko members, with helpful advice on how to get started. We’ll show you how to set up an account, create, upload and share a design … and how to get it made and shipped.
It’s a live event, so you can get all of your questions answered on the spot. (Or just remain anonymous and check it out, it’s up to you).
Sign up for the July Quickstart Webinar here The session is scheduled for 45-minutes of presentation, followed by 15 minutes at the end to answer questions.
Upcoming Quickstart Webinar times:
Webinars are held on the first Thursday of every month (US Pacific time). Just click the web links below to check your local time conversion:
Ponoko Quickstart - July 2nd, 2pm US Pacific time (sign up above now!)
Ponoko Quickstart - August 6th, 2pm US Pacific time
Ponoko Quickstart - September 3rd, 2pm US Pacific time Ponoko Quickstart - October 1st, 2pm US Pacific time Ponoko Quickstart - November 5th, 2pm US Pacific time Ponoko Quickstart - December 3rd, 2pm US Pacific time
You’ll be able to sign up to these future webinars soon. But to get started asap, signup to the July webinar above.
3D printing/manufacturing company Materialise has a new 2009 series of products for .MGX : the E-volution Collection. Twelve new designs in accessories, furniture, and lighting were commissioned to seven different designers: Arik Levy, Bathsheba Grossman, Gernot Oberfell and Jan Wertel, Hani Rashid, Jiri Evenhuis, and Luc Merx.
NW:The Shaman pendant designed by Arik Levy was constructed of epoxy with stereolithography (SL) and coated in nickel. A version in black epoxy is available at Unica.
N: Mathematician and sculptor Bathsheba Grossman modeled herGyroid lamp on a ‘minimal surface‘ structure that is infinitely connected and found in certain copolymers such as ABS plastic, a material often used in 3D printing. You can purchase one of these complex cubes at Generate.
NE & E: Stereolithography and selective laser sintering were used to make the Ubu and Roi vases, designed by Hani Rashid to evoke the motion of whirlpools. The Ubu is on sale at Moss.
SE: Peter Jansen is the mind behind the Tulip lamp. He also designed the floral inspired Julia lamp shown below, also available at Moss.
S: Luc Merx’s Stucco is a multifunctional modular, wall mounted system printed with epoxy. The structure intends to “transform the white emptiness of surrounding walls into a maximised density of form, colour, and material.”
SW: Another design by Bathsheba Grossman, the base form of the Wye table replicates the negative space of the gyroid.
W: A detail of Gernot Oberfell and Jan Wertel’s Fractal table. See the design in all of its arborescent glory in this post by Duann and this one from Roy.
Both Allan at Thingiverse and the team at Makerbot have been blogging most prolifically and interestingly on all things open design, including:
1. What the implications are for standards - will we be able to update mechanical standards like snapfits and screwcaps with simply a software update or patch?
2. Re-using CNC or laser cut offcuts - Get your screenprinter pal round for a drink and subtly direct him towards those annoyingly surplus squares of technoply.
Makerbot's offcut screenprints. Image via Makerbot's Flickrstream
Now, I know what you’re saying: “I’m not cool enough to be friends with a screenprinter, or indeed someone who does screenprinting!”. Well, maybe you could work some patterns or artwork into the waste areas of your lasercutting file as a starter, using a Creative Commons image search as a starter, or perhaps using Context Free you could make variable design for each batch..
“The argument that personal fabrication cannot compete with big production hinges on the notion that most people don’t need low-volume objects … But really, practically everyone does.” blogsAllan Ecker
I don’t think the significance of this idea can be under emphasised: Design is both a personal and subjective thing, and an objective thing. Personal fabrication serves our desire for the perfect products for us as individuals, and I don’t mean simply that it allows us to design our own objects: It opens up markets for designers to design for the small, niche areas, the long tails. And together with open design, we can share the objective elements of a design, such as the standard snap fits for example. We can have our (cup)cake and eat it!
We’re putting together a special sponsorship package to everyone who wants to make stuff to take with them and display at MakerFaire in San Mateo this year.
You’ll get an insane deal to get your stuff to MakerFaire, including a pack of “I make with Ponoko, so can you” cards - each with a huge incentive for the recipients to give it a go!
We’ve got some early ideas on the sponsorship deal to offer you, but please let us know what might work best for you. And how you’d most like to participate.
Leave comments below or email us: service-at-ponoko-dot-com
Previously we posted on the weirdness that is My Twin, for all those lonely, only children looking for an exact replica.
Now the Mini Me has once again reared it’s ugly (in the eye of the beholder) head with Mini Me personalized dolls.
ModelWorks offers figures that can be customized to look like whoever a buyer chooses. In just 10 days, you can have a 3-D Mini-Me action figure with a face created from a photo that you upload.
According to Graeme Warring, president of ModelWorks and creator of the Mini-Me, ModelWorks sets itself apart from other companies by attending to the details. “We don’t just sculpt a face, we capture an expression,” he says.
ModelWorks, is the Phoenix-based company behind the ‘Base-Me-Bernie’ mini-Madoff and other celebrity figures for sale on its site.
A wonderful gift which will be treasured forever! A Mini-Me® figure from ModelWorks® captures the detail of the “Big-Me” and translates it into a cute-pint sized character. Choose from a range of our action bodies, executive bodies, sporting bodies or Big-Buddies real body.
Approximately 24 business days later your hand-sculptured, hand-painted Mini-Me® will be winging its way to your house (or your friend’s house). Your very own Mini-Me® from ModelWorks® is cheaper than you may think, considering the blood, sweat and tears that go into making them.
French design firm ATYPYK have been developing a massive range of quirky objects over the past 9 years.
A simple design which could have easily been produced using Ponoko is the Gangster Ruler.
Check out their site with their bewildering array of designs. IVAN DUVAL & JEAN SEBASTIEN IDES are prolific to say the least.
oh yeah. according to their site.
IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT ATYPYK :
ATYPYK IS NOT THE BEST TO EXPLAIN ATYPYK
ATYPYK IS NOT A BOYS BAND
ATYPYK SOUNDS GREEK, BUT IS ACTUALLY FRENCH
ATYPYK IS FULL OF SPELLING MISTAKES
ATYPYK IS NOT A FAMILY BUSINESS
ATYPYK IS A FRIENDLY BUSINESS
ATYPYK HAS NO MARKETING DEPARTMENT
ATYPYK HAS NO SALES DEPARTMENT
NO BIG SURPRISE THAT YOU NEVER HEARD ABOUT US THEN
ATYPYK ENJOYS MAKING COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY THINGS
ATYPYK IS MUCH YOUNGER THAN YOU ARE
ATYPYK PRODUCTS ARE NOT FREE
ATYPYK CAN’T QUIT SMOKING
ATYPYK DOES NOT COMPETE WITH IKEA
ATYPYK THINKS THAT HUMANS ARE WONDERFUL (SOMETIMES)
ATYPYK WILL ALWAYS TELL NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH
ATYPYK PRODUCTS CONTAINS SMALL PARTS DANGEROUS FOR CHILDREN
ATYPYK PROMISE A LOT, BUT CAN’T GUARANTY ANYTHING
ATYPYK PRODUCTS ARE NOT MADE IN CHINA
ATYPYK IS NOT SPYCHIC
ATYPYK IS NOT TYPICAL
EVRYBODY DOES EVERYTHING AT ATYPYK
ATYPYK DOES NOT USE DRUGS TO COME UP WITH IDEAS
ATYPYK DRINK TOO LITTLE WATER DURING THE DAY
ATYPYK MAY CONSIDER ACCEPT MONEY FROM STANGERS
ATYPYK IS GOOD FOR YOUR MENTAL HEALTH
YOU’RE GOOD FOR ATYPYK’S HEALTH
ATYPYK PRODUCTS MAY BE ADDICTIVE
ATYPYK MAKES SMALL AND BIG MISTAKES
ATYPYK LEARNS SLOWLY BUT SURELY
ATYPYK WON’T SOLVE ANY WORLD PROBLEMS
ATYPYK LOVES TO WORK
ATYPYK KILLS FLIES (SORRY)
ATYPYK NEVER SAYS NEVER
ATYPYK NEVER EATS CAT FOOD
ATYPYK NEVER SKIPS HOLLYDAYS
ATYPYK DOES THINGS WITH PLEASURE
ATYPYK DOES NOT HAVE THE KEY TO SUCCESS
ATYPYK IS NOT SMART ENOUGH TO STEAL IDEAS
ATYPYK GETS DISTURB BY TOO MUCH COMPLIMENTS BUT LIKES IT ANYWAY
BELIEVE IT OR NOT ATYPYK LOVES HAPPY ENDS
Are you keen to get started making, but can’t quite bring yourself to kick it?
Well here’s a big incentive for you …
Get 30% off the making cost when you enter the following coupon code: PDXQA0
Just upload your design/s here to get an instant online price to make it for real using Designmake - and enter the coupon code on your way through the checkout.
This coupon dies after 11:59pm Saturday January 31, 2009 (EST), so be sure to use it by then!
(Note that this offer is only available for Designmake Free members (UPDATE: excluding metals) - you need some love and attention every now and then, just like the Designmake Prime members now don’t you).
If you’d like to list your products with design store retailers please email us: retail-at-ponoko-dot-com.
Within just 5 weeks of listing their products at Velocity (alongside some particularly famous designer brands) Relative Design have been making sales - and at more than $200 a pop, they’re doing great!
Also Chris at Northwards Design Studio has been picked up by a Japanese distributor and recently been listed at Ant.
And of course Allan’s coasters are available at Veer.
So if you want to spread your creativity around and get noticed in all of the right places, just email us: retail-at-ponoko-dot-com.
In a recent article Written by Joseph Blocher in the Yale Law Journal entitled Reputation as Property in Virtual Economies, Joseph takes a ‘lawyers eye view’ of emerging trends in online reputation, social capital and the implications of the two as a tradable commodity/property. “Economists and legal theorists have long argued that real-world economies cannot function effectively without well-defined property rights. More recently, scholars have also begun to analyze at least three kinds of “virtual” economies: the online economies exemplified by eBay and other trade-facilitating mechanisms; the economies in virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft; and the virtual reputational economies associated with MySpace and Facebook. The first two economies generally involve the exchange of familiar forms of property. But scholars have thus far failed to fully identify or analyze the property underlying the reputational economy. What that economy demonstrates, especially in its virtual form, is that reputation itself—social status and the respect of others—can usefully be understood as a form of property.”
This is not far off from Bourdieu’s theories of social capital previously discussed on the Ponoko blog. Blocher discusses the reputational economy in a similar way. “The importance of success in this reputational market can for some people be just as important as financial wealth—many people’s “lives virtually revolve around social-networking sites and blogs.” Indeed, by now it is old news that millions of people spend more time thinking about their Facebook profiles than their investment profiles.”
Now there are also theories that internet use as a social networking leverage drops off rapidly in teens, (for example) as soon as they are old enough to have the freedom (a car) and suddenly MySpace and Facebook is dropped for real, hormone driven face to face interactions. (according to Dr Genevieve Bell)
Ok, until now I thought the candlestick holder was the worst, but now this takes the cake for the weirdest and least cool use of a 3D print process. The London Ultrasound Centre in the UK offers the ability to take a 3D scan of your offspring - before birth - and produce a 3D print of the child. The 3D Print is then used to create a mold for a bronze casting. There’s no official pricing on the Centre’s website for this service, but according to the Daily Mail (and Fabaloo), it costs 1,200 pounds sterling (or around USD$1,800) and take several weeks to deliver!
