I want to clue you guys into one MakerBot all-star you should know about, Mike Moceri, or Moceri on Thingiverse. Mike is easily the new go-to expert on using Kinect and ReconstructMe to scan and make models of people on a MakerBot. He has posted a couple dozen busts of people who visited him at various events in the Chicago area, and shared his expertise on how to host that type of event.

He’s a key member Tonight Mike’s going to be over at the Zhou B. Art Center in Chicago participating in an event called Facemask, which is tagged the “Eight Annual National Self Portrait Exhibit.” The exhibit is expected to draw over 800 people for the opening night. More detail:

Facemask explores the hidden personality behind our social media face. Such personality here described as our “other”. This exhibition will take place in the main gallery of the Zhou B Art Center and it is the theme of this year’s 8th Annual National Self Portrait Exhibition.The main gallery of the Zhou B. Art Center will become a national laboratory for the exploration and visual representation of the “self”. The exhibition will include works ranging from representational, non-representational and conceptual ideas of the self. It will feature works in a variety of media. The Zhou B. Art Center is home to 33 Contemporary Gallery and it is located at 1029 W. 35th Street, Chicago, IL 60609. Opening night is from 7-10pm.

Mike will be joined by several members of the ChiMUG (Chicago MakerBot User Group), including, Met MakerBot Hackathon participant Tom Burtonwood, the uber-creative MakerBotter TheNewHobbyist, and the digital artist Patrick Lichty. The team will be scanning visitors and making their likenesses on Mike’s Thing-O-Matic.

And they’ll be livestreaming it! Check out all the action here and on Mike’s twitter account @MoceriMike.

Have fun, guys!

Send this video to the fathers in your life this weekend! 
And check out what else you can do with a MakerBot on Father’s Day!

Look what PrettySmallThings did at the Met during our Hackathon!

There’s a special bit of information on the Thingiverse page, too:

The awesome thing about this print, is that the helmet its based on isn’t on display at the MET, it’s in storage – I worked off a 123D Catch created by MET staff. You can’t see this at the MET, but you can see it in your own home thanks to 3D printing!

Kaboom! This piece of armor is otherwise inaccessible (there’s only so much space!), but the Met staff was so cool as to snap some photos of it and share them with a digital artist so that the entire world can now get their hands on it.

Check out the original here, and compare the two pieces. PrettySmallThings (aka Kacie Hultgren) did some “restoration” work on the file in order to re-sculpt some parts that didn’t render quite right. This is an excellent addition to the armor scales by Krest that MakerBlock blogged about the other day.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?¹

1. scale these up and wear them for in-office chair jousting [↩]