I recently discovered a YouTube channel called “Numberphile” where a documentary filmmaker Brady Haran does a series of short interviews and clips with different mathematicians and physicists about numbers.  Since my short description simply does not do this series justice – please take a few minutes and watch this recent video of theirs about how Richard Feyman defeated every government safe in Los Alamos.

Many of the videos in this series feature James Grime, a mathematician who recently invented a new kind of non-transitive dice as well as several games you can play with them.  That is, several games you can play with them and always win.  Non-transitive dice are designed in such a way that the first die will always tend to beat the second, the second will always tend to beat the third, and the third will always tend to beat the first.  Efron dice designed by American statistician Brad Efron and feature the same “circular pattern of victory” – but with four dice.  Grime dice by Numberphile star Professor James Grime feature five dice which have a similar ”circular pattern of victory” with additional interesting properties.

Encouraged by Professor Grime’s infectious enthusiasm, I designed three sets of printable non-transitive dice (three non-transitive dice, four Efron dice, and five Grime dice) which you can print on your MakerBot at home – either as dice where you color in the pips or which you can print with dualstrusion.

By the way, my favorite part from any of these videos is where Professor Grime talks about how he thought up these dice in his mind, and now they occupy a real physical place in the world since he had them created.  This video includes a refrain any Thingiverse citizen is familiar with…  ”I made a thing!”

(Also, please don’t use these dice for evil.  Remember that with great power, comes great responsibility.)

Skylar Tibbits is an architect and MIT fellow who worked with molecular scientist Arthur Olson to create a huge spinning device that demonstrates how particles can be attracted to one another when they move and come into contact, usually resulting in the creation of larger and more complex structures.  This movie by Karen Eng shows the model, named the Self-Assembly Line, in motion.

What I particularly like about Skylar’s demonstration of the shaken-chain-link creation is it’s similarity to those tiny pill sized foam toys you see in the grocery store aisles. These are the cardboard-backed packages hanging off the sides of the grocery shelves which promise instant-dinosaurs or instant-sea-creatures. You drop one of those colored pills in warm water, the capsule dissolves, and you have a tiny foam dinosaur.¹ With Skylar’s chain designs, one could “pre-program” a chain, hand it off to someone who would then shake it, and then the “pre-programmed” dinosaur² shape would then emerge.³

How awesome would it be to pre-program little surprise toys that could be shaken into being? Interestingly, with some dissolveable PVA and a dual-extruder 3D printer, you could actually print the entire design as one solid piece, dunk it in water to remove the connections, and then hand it off to play with.

1. Or sea creature [↩]
2. Or sea creature [↩]
3. Shake-a-saurus? [↩]

With so many amazing resolution and reliability advancements in MakerBotting technology, it can be easy to forget that 3D printed objects don’t belong in every kind of application.

Please do not use ABS or PLA near any kind of heat source or flame including fireworks or even incense.  ABS will catch fire and keep burning with a thick black smoke. ^1 2  PLA becomes very soft even at low-ish heat and can deform and melt, losing it’s stability and structural integrity. ³

So, this Fourth of July, please be safe and keep your awesome MakerBotted goodies away from flame or heat!

Remember, only you can prevent bunny fires.

That said, Tealids’ incense holder IS pretty awesome. 

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1. Which, of course, is never a good sign. [↩]
2. Plus, I have to think that smelly smoke would negate any good smells generated by incense… [↩]
3. That’s one of the reasons PLA is never used as a hot beverage or food container. [↩]

Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Lutz-R. Frank via Compfight

How amazing would it be to be able to have a balloon in any shape?  What would you want?  A piano?  A cartoon character?  A giant bouncy house?

The New Scientist just reported that a team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Disney Research has developed a method for taking any desired 3D shape, then using their research on how a rubber balloon stretches as it inflates, reverse engineers the deflated shape that would most closely lead to the desired inflated balloon.  Then, once they have the model for the deflated balloon, they create a mold for it using a 3D printer!  If you just can’t wait to learn more, they’re presenting their work at the Eurographics conference in Italy next month.

Thanks to Luis Rodriguez for the link!

Posting about the Light It Up Blue logo design yesterday got me thinking: what if I did want to print out four or five of these at a time? What if I were a teacher and wanted to modify and multiply this awesome badge for a Wild West unit with my students?

As it happens, my colleagues in Support have just today published a new tutorial addressing this exact question. It’s a quick read, and you can find out how to divide your build platform for a designated number of copies of your object. So you can have two three headed tigers, or three four leaf clovers, or four five fingered salutes.

Speaking of tutorials, the Support team wants to hear from you. What tutorial would you really like to see? Is there something you’ve had to teach yourself that you think we could cover with a good how-to? Let us know! Comment below, or submit your ideas to [email protected] at any time.

Now, go forth and multiply!

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In case some of you have been pinging us with your support queries, or simply reaching out for a nice chat, you should know that MakerBot Support is down today while we move boxes and desks. Everything will be back up and running tomorrow, March 29, 2012.

This one’s for you.

MakerBot’s own Tony Buser has put together this helpful video tutorial showing how he uses a variety of programs to fix 3D objects and scans to make them more printable.  There are a lot of ways for things to go wrong with a 3D object.  You could have a flipped triangle, internal structures,  or there could be a hole in the mesh.  Tony’s video provides a great overview and takes you step-by-step through the most popular 3D mesh fixing programs.  Even though this video depicts a 3D scan being fixed, the programs and methods shown could be used to fix any problematic 3D object.  Give it a shot!

Yesterday we posted about the Innovative Humanitarian Products Organization, the brainchild of Auburn student Grant Moore. Today we have a bit more background to Grant’s cool story and how he’s using his MakerBot to charge ahead on some of the developing world’s problems.

During a summer internship in 2010, Grant saved up for a Cupcake CNC in order to be able to prototype various ideas. He hadn’t yet thought of a water purification system, but says the “power and flexibility that Makerbot offered caused me to search for new uses of the machine.” Grant even has a patent pending for a special ratcheting mechanism he perfected on his MakerBot.

The idea for a water purification system grew out of a recognition of the “truly staggering” water crisis worldwide. He tells me his group now has two systems.

ALPS (Advanced Liquid Purification System) and SaL (Salt and Light). Both operate on the same principle however one is powered by a hand-crank while the other is powered by a solar-cell. The technology is effective at eliminating the majority of all viruses, bacteria, and protozoa to safe levels.

Grant and his student organization IHPO, now 130 members strong, use Grant’s  MakerBot Cupcake  to print the casings for the ALPS as well as the parts for their newest “Hybrid Purifier.” They’ve even tested these systems on the ground in Uganda! You can see a short video of the casing being printed on their Facebook page by clicking the links above. He says the organization has grown into a 501(c)3 non-profit and is “working to establish strong lasting partnerships with other non-profits.”

We are so glad Grant and his colleagues have been able to use MakerBot for global good. Do you know of anyone doing similar work, or have you had ideas for a humanitarian project that you’d like to prototype on a MakerBot? We’d love to hear your stories, too!

If there is one thing we love, it’s hearing about amazing students doing great things with a MakerBot! There is a student-led organization at Auburn University using MakerBot to solve the potable water crisis in the developing world.

Our support team here in the BotLair got a service request yesterday, and after digging around, we’re intrigued. The Innovative Humanitarian Products Organization is a group born out of a project by Grant Moore, who was a student in the Business Engineering Technology program at Auburn. Grant used his Thing-o-Matic to prototype his group’s Advanced Liquid Purification System (ALPS). Apparently, having a MakerBot on hand meant he could print a box to hold all the parts of the system he envisioned. Looking at some Facebook pictures, it seems IHPO may have used their 3D printer for more parts than just the box.

Here’s a slideshow to give you some more background on the group. We’ll update more as we get additional information about this great project!

Come see limited edition Project Shellter shells at the Wonderloch Kellerland Gallery in Atwater Village, Los Angeles. Opening is tonight from 7-11PM and there will be music, live portraiture, and looping shell adoption videos. If you can’t make it tonight, the show runs through February.

Follow, share and contribute to help save hermit crabs by keeping natural shells in the wild! Use the hashtag #shellter or the shellter tag to let others know you are participating in this crowd-sourced science experiment!:

• projectshellter.com
• @ProjectShellter
• bit.ly/​ProjectShellter
• bit.ly/​ProjectShellterShells
• youtu.be/​ProjectShellter

This guest post is part of Project Shellter

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