Are you guys watching the Thingiverse blog? There’s some new activity on there.

I noticed this one earlier: a little hut for your garden that traps slugs and — hmm… — kills ‘em. I’m with Greg on this one, I kinda like slugs. They’re peaceful. But if they’re a nuisance for your garden, make one of these things today and set it out.

If you look at the Thingiverse page for this Slug Trap, you’ll see a little conversation about alcohol and plastic. Since this trap is supposed to use beer to attract the slugs, one commenter wondered if it might degrade over time.

I asked one of our resident materials experts and got an answer: as long as the beverage is less than 8% alcohol by volume, all should be ok! So go on, get rid of some Bud Light and some slugs at the same time.

I’m still buzzing from Maker Faire, which Annelise captured beautifully in the last episode of Season 2 of MakerBot TV. I met thousands and thousands of people at the MakerBot tent, including people who were discovering us for the first time and people who had all three generations of bots at home.

And then there were people in the middle, like Jason Huggins, or hugs on Thingiverse. Jason was part of the Grid Beam booth just down the path from our tent, and stopped by during set up on Friday to say hello. When I asked him whether he was a MakerBotter, he said no, but that he was a part of the community and had a good Thingiverse success story. Incidentally, Jason is the founder of Sauce Labs, a cloud version of the website performance testing services Selenium that he also started. But he is an enthusiastic open source hardware guy, too.

Last fall, Jason started his project Bitbeam, which he explains this way on his blog:

Bitbeam = Lego + Grid Beam = Awesome

To clarify: Grid Beam is a construction system created by Phil and Richard Jergensen, and Bitbeam is a miniaturization of that concept to just the right scale that it’s compatible with Lego, and especially Lego Technic.

Jason added Bitbeam to Thingiverse last September as a file for laser cutting, and before the day was out, there were two derivatives including a version you can make on a MakerBot. He was really excited to tell me about that, and I was excited to hear it. One person put an open source hardware idea into the community, and someone else, a total stranger, took it from one way of making things into another in just a few hours.

And here’s how Maker Faire chapter of this story makes it more awesome. When Jason told me at our tent on Friday that he had still never seen his Bitbeams made on a MakerBot, I said I could easily run the file through ReplicatorG for him. I did that in a spare moment that same evening, which took me all of two minutes, and finally caught up with Jason on Sunday to show him the final product. This was the look on his face.

A Happy Hugs

And this was his tweet to me:

@pelkertron Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! /cc @MakerBot @bitbeam

— Jason Huggins (@hugs) May 21, 2012

It’s nice when a grown up can be genuinely surprised and delighted by something. Jason told me that he has no real interest in laser cutting the Bitbeam pieces in balsa wood — although, I have to say I really think they’re nice looking — and would rather just tell the world to get a MakerBot and make all the pieces themselves. He twisted and bent the ABS parts in his hand and said the durability was better than the wood. Just to be sure of the quality of the design, we linked one up to one of his Bitbeam constructions on display. Perfect fit!

MakerBotted Bitbeam attached to laser cut Bitbeam

I was thrilled to meet Jason and to give him a little confirmation that his idea of making his designs on a MakerBot was a great one. This was really easy because we were at Maker Faire together, but this is exactly the kind of thing that happens in hackerspaces all the time. If you own a MakerBot, I hope you give yourself the thrill of making something for someone, and letting them tell you their ideas that could take over the world.

This stuff never gets old.

Cat Litter Trap by Triskite

It’s a testament to the wonders of 3D design and MakerBotting that a 3D printer is just so dang useful.  You can use it to whip up a toy, broken latch, and now… keep kitty litter in it’s proper place.

It may seem like a small matter, but it’s never a good thing to see kitty litter outside of a kitty litter box.  Thingiverse citizen Triskite’s cat litter trap takes care of this problem with aplomb.  While many kitty litter boxes even include similar litter traps, not all of them do.  This is such a simple and useful modification to a litter box or home that no cat lover should do without it to keep the rest of their home free of pesky pet particles.

Cat Litter Trap by Triskite

Porous stepping platform to provide a barrier + litter trap between a cat litter box and the rest of the house...

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It’s going to be a big weekend for everyone attending Maker Faire Bay Area. Here are a few quick ideas for what you could make to be fully prepared for the festivities.

Card holder by eM5

Business Card Holder with Top by eM5

I saw one of these on Annelise’s desk the other day, and I have to have one. If you get a card from me at MakerFaire, it’ll be from one of these suckers!

But here’s why you should have one for MakerFaire. Trading cards! Shawn  Wallace at Make Magazine has designed these awesome 3D printer trading cards for this weekend. There’s no word on whether there will be actual cards – looks like these are just designs right now – but in case some enterprising person turns these into cards, you’ll be prepared with your card holder!

Mustache and Monocle by chefmaki

Disguise!

Are you supposed to come into the office on Saturday, but you’re planning to sneak over to Maker Faire instead? You need this Mustache and Monocle by chefmaki, just in case your boss shows up. Also, if I see you walking around Maker Faire with this thing, I will feature you on the blog, no questions asked.

Whistle by madkite

A Whistle, either this one by Zaggo, or this slightly modified one above by madkite. If you’re bringing your kids to Maker Faire, and if they have a tendency to run off, you can use your whistle to get their attention. Or perhaps you can use it to referee some robot basketball. These are just ideas; a whistle is always useful.

Nepenthesis by Ecken

A beautiful Nepentheses Planter by Ecken. One thing I want to do at Maker Faire if I get the chance is visit some of the gardening booths. I like the idea of making these Guerilla Garden bombs full of wildflower seeds and throwing them around my neighborhood. Maybe you could leave the planter at home, but it would be a great home for some of the flora you might pick up over the weekend.

Trebuchet by jam4ar

Trebuchet

When does one need a reason to make a trebuchet? Make this and launch things; at Maker Faire. Case closed. Here’s one from jam4ar.

Anyone who has ever used Apple earbuds knows that they look nice and feel terrible. Honestly it seems like those earbuds are made for robots. I’m going to go test a pair on R. Maker in a minute.

If you’re not a robot, Thingiverse user and industrial designer J.C. Karich has solved this problem very elegantly. An adapter for Apple earbuds to work as over-ear headphones.

There are two awesome things here.

1. If you want to use your in-ear headphones, you still can. There’s nothing permanent here.

2. Because you’re making these on your MakerBot, you can adjust the strap around your head to be the exact right size by printing more or fewer parts. Or, I suspect, since the curve of each section is constant, you could slice one piece at any point, as long as the angle of your cut is right.

This is a Work-in-Progress on Thingiverse, but here’s more of J.C. Karich’s work. I particularly like the G.I.P.S., a 3D-printed global positioning system which gives you an indirect path toward your destination based on different kinds of “intuition”. A perfect tool for the wanderer, and it looks like a rock that you might pick up on a stroll through the woods.

Minifig Mechs by wgss

Thingiverse citizen wgss has been absolutely rocking a series of mini Mechs.  There’s so much to appreciate about these designs.  Not only are these scaled just right for legos, but each one of wgss’s four mechs is comprised of more than a dozen individual parts.  For Pete’s sake, he’s even modeled bullets separately.  While this means more gluing and assembly, having the parts separated out means everything can be printed without needing to use support structures and each piece could be printed with a different color plastic.

Minifig Mech by wgss

This was an assignment in our school's 3D modelling class. This was modelled in 3D Studio. Thanks to Riley.

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MiniFig Mech 2.0 by wgss

This was an assignment in our school's 3D modelling class. This was modelled in 3D Studio. Thanks to Andrew.

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MiniFig Mech 3.0 by wgss

Another student made mech from our "design a mech" assignment. Ross forgot a spot for the Minifig, so we figured what would be more comfortable than a 60s sofa?

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MiniFig Mech 4.0 by wgss

Another student entry into our school's "design a mech" assignment. I'm told this one was inspired by Metal Slug. There's not a clear seat for the MiniFig, so feel free to make one yourself...

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The tail end of this fun little history of the clothespin in the New York Times Magazine sounds like a MakerBot call to action, from an organization that thinks people should wash their clothes in cold water and use clotheslines to dry them. Read the article for the history of the invention, but here’s what I want to call your attention to:

HOUSEHOLD HELP

Glen Berkowitz is the executive director of Project Laundry List, a nonprofit organization that advocates washing clothes in cold water and hanging them out to dry. Here, he shares his thoughts on the clothespin:

What role does the clothespin play in Project Laundry List? Looking backward, the clothespin is a relatively easy way to dry your clothes without having to lay them on the ground or drape them over something. Looking forward, the clothespin is a phenomenal interest of ours because we’re in the process of setting up a brand-new national design competition.

What kind of design competition? The clothespin hasn’t changed for over 150 years. Is there a better clothespin just waiting out there by some young or creative mind? By the end of this year, we will formally launch this. We’re excited to see what we find.

This one’s for us, Makers! I’ve started to think about clothespins without springs that come in a variety of sizes depending on the job. But take note of this last point, too:

Do you recommend the wooden or the plastic variety? If the wooden clothespin was still made in the United States, we would recommend it, but what’s made in America now are plastic clothespins. One is less economical and the other is less sustainable. It evens out.

There are several arguments one could make about why making your own clothespins in ABS on your MakerBot reduces material waste. But to drive the point home, maybe we should be thinking about PLA pins. There are a few awesome clothespins on Thingiverse already, like the one below from PolygonPusher. Let’s build off of these and think about a new design that can be MakerBotted.

Clothespin by PolygonPusher

Instructables.com is a fountain of good stuff for the DIYer. Here are a few recent favorites:

Rubber band-powered car toy

This 18-step Instructable from Thingiverse user mrigsby is really straightforward and you get a fun toy to play with at the end! What impressed me here is that this project was Mike’s first experience with 3D modeling software. He used Tinkercad to design the car, and seems to think it was pretty easy.

To make a wheel, you just drag a cylinder onto the workspace.  Set the diameter and the thickness and you’re almost done.  Drag a hole onto the workspace, adjust the diameter and place it in the center of the wheel.  Group the hole and the wheel.  That’s it.

He made this on The Replicator, and shares his tricks, too. For example, to make these pieces with a raft underneath, Mike says he has had the most luck setting the build plate temperature to 115° C, rather than 100° C.

You can find all the files for the Rubber Band Powered Car on Thingiverse!

Tilt-Shift Lens Adapter

Here’s another Instructables/Thingiverse gem, made especially for the photo geek. A tilt-shift lens is “used to create a miniature effect or a very shallow depth of field in your photography,” and if you shoot from a high angle pointing down, the accessory “creates the illusion of looking down at a miniature model.”

What I liked about this project in particular is the cost savings here. Joe Murphy, author of the Instructable, says the professional version is pretty pricey; “we’re talking $1000- 3000.” So I decided to just make one for myself and see how much it costs in ABS.

Answer: at 7 grams, the part costs $0.30. And it took 19 minutes, from digital to tangible. So there ya go.

3D-Printed Circuit Boards

Just as a blog post at Oppino.com noted a lack of experiments with 3D-printed circuit boards, an Instructable showed up from CarryTheWhat, an Open Source Hardware group with a presence on Etsy and Thingiverse.

In this step-by-step, you get careful instructions on making the circuit board itself from files available on Thingiverse. There is a library of files for all the different components and advice on arranging them successfully. The example in the Instructable will output a simple circuit to get an LED to blink.

This is admittedly not complex stuff, but it is remarkable to see a DIY circuit project that involves no soldering or etching. All of these parts have been “thoroughly tested on the MakerBot Replicator, with ABS plastic,” according to the Thingiverse page.

Today is the day when the residents of 78 countries engage in one big gasp: “Mother’s Day is two days away!” I bet you could hear this from space.

Here’s how a Maker solves this. Go to Thingiverse.

There are a number of things to download and make that your mom would love. Flowers, sculptures, jewelry, things to hold jewelry, phone accessories, organizers, aquarium structures, things for the home.

Did you take a nice trip with your mom? Thingiverse probably has a miniature of one of the buildings or monuments you saw. Or maybe you just want to customize a picture frame for that shot of the kids.

If you have a MakerBot, you can make your mom anything you can think of. Here are a few ideas to get you going. Whatever you make, be sure to tag it Mother’s Day to help fellow citizens of the Thingiverse.

World, you need to be following the developments of Joe, who is now a fully fledged MakerBotter.

Joe, or Cymon on Thingiverse, was the winner of the Tinkercad Chess Set Design competition, for which we awarded him The Replicator.  And now he’s on the way toward making his famed Action Chess set!

As you can see, the sweet thing about this chess set is that the pieces are designed to assemble into this chess giant. Now that Joe has had a chance to test his design, he’s reporting success! The pieces do in fact assemble, but he says there’s a bit of calibration and fine tuning left.