What have you made and shared today?

Bathtoy by Request!

After explaining Thing-A-Day to my daughter, I asked her what she would like me to design for her for day 2. Answer: A sailboat for the bathtub.

Tool for a Working Artist!

Last night, my wife needed a circle template for an art project she was doing. This took about 15 minutes to make in total, from design to finished product. And that is why 3D printing is awesome.

Jewelry (and Tool for Future Jewelry)!

This design is intended to be an envelope to be boolean used (intersection) with other textured designs, we’ll see….

Tool for Learning About Clocks!

I figured this tool might be useful for the MakerBot Clock Makers project and for educators and students looking to explore basic gear mechanics.  (I am spending time each day designing new attachments for it.)

Keep checking back to see what other Thing-A-Day participants are sharing on Thingiverse — and get out there and make some stuff.

Japanese hirajiro castle by arnsteio

How’s this for a first-time contribution to Thingiverse?  Arnsteio’s first design shared on Thingiverse is this incredibly intricate and detailed Japanese hirajiro castle.

This is a small Japanese “hirajiro” plains castle from the sengoku period. Bases were simply made of earth so for the castle to survive the vagaries of weather and earth quakes, superstructures had to be light. Hence we see simple walls, small houses and open-work towers. It is meant for use when wargaming, and will be suitable for campaigns in Japan in the 1400s and 1500s – I will use it for the Kawanakajima campaigns.

Awesome work arnsteio!  Please keep the models coming!

Japanese hirajiro castle by arnsteio

This is a small Japanese "hirajiro" plains castle from the sengoku period. Castle bases were simply made of earth so for the castle to survive the vagaries of weather and earth quakes, superstructures had to be light. Hence we see simple walls, small houses and open-work towers. The model is meant for use when wargaming, and will be suitable for campaigns in Japan in the 1400s and 1500s - I will use it for the Kawanakajima campaigns. I have made it for use with 10mm wargaming armies, though it would work equally well for larger or smaller scales. The ashigaru figure I placed in the courtyard for scale is 10mm foot to eye. He is a ripoff of Erik's excellent bride and groom from thingiverse.com/thing:3495 (and he's based on the bride, no less!).

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Rubber Band Ties by lasivian

One of the most noble uses of a 3D printer has got to be making the world a safer place.  Thingiverse user lasivian described the reason behind his rubber band ties:

You might have seen these under other names, but most of them were no good for me because my girlfriend is allergic to latex.

Enter the printer and a box of latex-free rubber bands from a local office store.

Rubber Band Ties by lasivian

You might have seen these under other names, but most of them were no good for me because my girlfriend is allergic to latex. Enter the printer and a box of latex-free rubber bands from a local office store.

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Mutang bug by addy

This is the very first Thingiverse design from Thingiverse citizen addy’s 9 year old son – a mutant bug designed with the help of 3DTin.com.  As you can see from the comments, addy’s son has really taken the Thingiverse spirit to heart by making changes to the designs based upon feedback from other users.  Designing an object, managing constructive criticism, and revising designs – these are important lessons for anyone, let alone a 9 year old.

And, lest we not forget his contributions…  A special thanks to addy for helping his son share these designs and making Thingiverse a better place for it.

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:16545

Mutant bug by addy

My 9 year old son, Joel's first design, created using 3d tin.

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Electro Wire Stripper by bjbsquared

Check out Thingiverse citizen bjbsquared’s “Electro Wire Stripper.”  This little baby lights up, thanks to an LED, resistor, and two small batteries, when you’re stripping wires to let you know you’re making contact with the actual metal cores so you won’t accidentally slice the wire.  I could easily see this taking a place in every electrician or hacker’s toolbox.

Electro Wire Stripper by bjbsquared

This is one of the best wire strippers I have ever used. If setup correctly, it can be very precise and give feedback telling when the blades have cut deep enough. Use: Sight down the blades. Align the blades with where the wire should be stripped. Move the wire into the blades having the blades cut into the insulation. When the blades cut through the insulation and contact the wire the LED will light. Spin the wire or the tool to cut the insulation completely around the wire. Remove the wire from the tool and pull off the insulation.

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A few notable things about February:

• Always the shortest month (even during Leap Year).
• Often too cold to play outside much (well, maybe not this year).
• Contains Valentine’s Day, a day focused on sharing the things you love with those you love.
• Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays, actual and observed.
• Time for the annual Thing-A-Day challenge!

If you have never participated in Thing-A-Day before, here’s the quick summary: this is an opportunity to join a vocal crowd of Makers who are seizing the day, each day for a month, as an opportunity to make something new and then share it (or evidence of it) as part of their community posting effort. Several of us at MakerBot are planning to participate on our own time with a wide range of tools — and encourage you all to not only consider signing up and sticking with the challenge, but also posting your creations to Thingiverse for all of our community to savor.

A few tips. Aim … um … simple. Like 45min from idea-to-thing kind of simple. And push a bit ahead towards the next day whenever a little extra time falls your way. Oh, and take those things that you have to do anyway and twist them into opportunities to share something that, frankly, people really will appreciate anyway.

Inspire all of us and help populate Thingiverse with new and exciting things that have never been shared there before!

And don’t forget, the Thingiverse tag you should use for your posts is: “thing-a-day”

Back in September, hot on the tail of World Maker Faire 2011, the MakerBot Marketing crew teamed up with ArtStar.com to help gifted artist and (at the time) recent MakerBot Operator newbie Micah Ganske develop and edition a small print-on-demand series of sculptural works for the Affordable Art Fair in New York. These pieces drew much attention around the time of AAF — including articles in The Wall Street Journal and a piece in Modern Painters magazine – even before becoming part of Ganske’s solo exhibition Tomorrow Land at RH Gallery, which closed only a few weeks ago.

Following a lead established by past MakerBot Artist-in-Residence Marius Watz, Ganske has just now released several of his projects on Thingiverse with a Creative Commons license that permits MakerBot Operators all over the world to make his sculptures for themselves. Like Watz, Ganske sees no difficulty offering both supervised and signed pieces of his work in a limited edition for a collectors/gallery setting and also offering a version for download for  those with 3D printers who wish to execute their own non-commercial replicas of his work.

The collaboration with Ganske — himself now quite an accomplished, enthusiastic MakerBot Operator — didn’t stop with his first pieces: he was commissioned by MakerBot to create illustrations, including what MAKE described as that “awesome poster annoucing the launch of The Replicator 3D printer“!

Check out Ganske’s releases here!

James Tiberius Kirk #1 by MicahGanske

This is a sculpture from my recent solo show, "Tomorrow Land"! You can read all about the meaning of the work here: rhgallery.com/site/exhibitions/tomorrowland/tomorrowland_pressrelease.pdf What's important is this sculpture features the silhouette of William Shatner cut out of a landscape. It's art so it's not "for" anything other than to impress your friends with your well-developed cultural palette.

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James Tiberius Kirk #2 by MicahGanske

This is a sculpture from my recent solo show, "Tomorrow Land"! You can read all about the meaning of the work here: rhgallery.com/site/exhibitions/tomorrowland/tomorrowland_pressrelease.pdf This is a variation on the first sculpture (also on Thingiverse). What's important is this sculpture features the silhouette of William Shatner cut out of a landscape. It's art so it's not "for" anything other than to impress your friends with your well-developed cultural palette.

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Shuttle R.I.P. by MicahGanske

This is a sculpture from my recent solo show, "Tomorrow Land"! You can read all about the meaning of the work here: rhgallery.com/site/exhibitions/tomorrowland/tomorrowland_pressrelease.pdf This sculpture commemorates the end of the shuttle program. The shuttle silhouette is cut out of a cemetery. Pour one out for this retired work-horse! It's art so it's not "for" anything other than to impress your friends with your well-developed cultural palette.

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We are looking forward to seeing Micah’s work appearing in homes and other settings around the world, and you might catch a glimpse of Micah’s posters in a city near you….

Keff's Weeping Skeleton Vampire Mummy Earphone Winder

Thingiverse citizen Keff just shared this awesome “Weeping Skeleton Vampire Mummy Earphone Winder.”  The earphone cord works perfectly as a faux-bandage around the mummy’s head.  This is absolutely my favorite earphone winder of all time.  Keff says of his creation:

I got a little carried away making a winder for my new earphones.

Hey Keff – if this is you carried away, don’t ever let anyone carry you back!  This is AWESOME!

Keff's Weeping Skeleton Vampire Mummy Earphone Winder by keff

I got a little carried away making a winder for my new earphones.

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In the past, I’ve decried the lack of kitchen-related items on the Thingiverse, but previous few of us (myself certainly included) have done much to fill in this gap.

It thus gives me all the more pleasure to share this brilliant, largely 3d-printed solution to one of mankind’s oldest and most challenging culinary problems: the drying of fresh, hand-made pasta.

At one time or another, our less culinarily-oriented partners have all walked in on a horror scene of kitchen chairs festooned with eggy, yellow strands, fresh from our well-loved Marcato Atlas.  If only we had known we were just a few dowels and 3d-printed connectors away from a workable pasta-drying solution!  Think of the pasta-related arguments we would have been spared…

Thank you fma for your thoughtful design!

Pasta dryer by fma

This is a pasta dryer, inspired from ones you can buy. But this one is printable!

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Deck Box for a collectible card game by SirGronk

This card game deck box by SirGronk is such a perfect example of what it can mean to have your own 3D printer.  Since no one mass produces and sells deck boxes for his particular card game, he just designed and printed his very own!  This might even prove to be an interesting and viral little business.  Since you would need an opponent to play against, there’s going to be at least one other person who could potentially be interested in such a deck box.  And, perhaps the people they play with as well.

Don’t forget there are other examples of MakerBotted deck boxes for other games too!

Deck Box for a collectible card game by SirGronk

I play a collectible card game (CCG) called "Vampire: the Eternal Struggle". The V:tES decks have more cards in them than the standard Magic decks. 102 cards in sleeves don't fit in most available deck boxes. So I learned Google Sketchup and made my own. It's not fancy, but it's solid and fits really well. I also put the V:tES logo on the front of the box for added customization and opponent jealousy. Hooray for my first uploaded design!

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Poke Ball Deck Box by 67restomodder

I created a parametric box script in OpenSCAD to make some custom storage boxes. My 11 year-old son asked if I could make him a box to hold a deck of Pokemon cards. He requested it have a Poke Ball on the front of the box and on the lid. I am anticipating he will be asking for more of these. I included the OpenSCAD script. It is parametric and has the ability to create a box and lid in any size with dividers (in both X and Y). It can also round the corners as desired. The Poke Ball decorations can be easily removed and/or replaced with anything you desire. Enjoy!

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Game Card Holder (configurable/SCAD) by Zarquon

I just drew these in my office at lunch. I'm new to scad so I'm sure there is a healthy number of bugs. Seems to work out well during my test print though. This is a redraw of the Game Card Holder thing by condac. I've migrated them to open scad so they have some configuration options. These include: 1. resizable for different cards 2. choose which tabs/slots to add (make a 2x2 block, avoid dangling tab on end or whatnot) 3. [simple] lid and adjustable walls to make deck box The lid barely fits in (default is no clearance). The bottom can warp enough to make it really snug. When the box gets larger you may consider reducing the clearance ratio for the lid (to less then 1.0) to make it snugger and making the walls larger. The larger deck box (the catan one works like a charm) in the picture needs a rubber band on it to stay closed when full. Note: The tabs on this adjust in size with the card size. This means they are not compatible with cornac's tabs or different size cards tabs.

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