MakerBot Industries

This is the beginning of the BEST Dr. Octopus Halloween costume EVER.  I could totally see myself wearing a suit that had four of these mechanical tentacles grafted to the back, with a series of wires and cords going to a set of complicated gloves.  Thank you Thingiverse citizen Misguided for making this dream a reality!

Mechanical Tentacle by Misguided

I'm trying to make a mind controlled tentacle and this is where I'm at so far. Right now, the ball and socket joints are a little too loose, and the movement isn't very good (partly due to the weight of the parts). Also the sockets are a little stiff and fragile when printed with PLA Once all that is sorted, I'll hook it up to some servos and the obligatory Arduino. Video of it "working": youtu.be/EVMatHNgC6s

This thing brought to you by

A budding roboticist writes to share that she was spotted on the red carpet at the recent Robot Film Festival, sporting a MakerBotted bracelet!

This year, Robot Film Festival, next year…Tonys?  Grammys? Oscars?  Will Joan Rivers be asking the glitterati  “whose Thingiverse item are you wearing?”

Anybody else making fashion statements with their MakerBots?  Share your stories in the comments.

Beautiful Chunky Bracelet by tinkerbelle

Simple. Elegant. Parametric Faceted bracelet that any lady would love. Looks like a nut. Guess that makes her arm the bolt. =) The must have accessory of the year! As seen on CES 2012 runway, MAKE magazine, and Robot Film Festival red carpet. My first 3D printed project! Here's the OpenSCAD and STL files. Collaborative project with thingiverse.com/beatbots

This thing brought to you by

I wanted to use a metal spring for a new design.  However, the problem with metal springs is trying to find something that is useful, ubiquitous, and cheap.  However, I was shocked that I simply could not find any pictures anywhere on the internet of the inside of a Pez dispenser!  After a little help from Chris Connors, I decided that the metal spring from inside a Pez dispenser would be absolutely perfect for my application.  After locating a Pez dispenser of my own, I disassembled it and found it was, indeed, just what I needed.

If you’re interested in taking apart a Pez dispenser in a minimally destructive way, here’s how you do it:

The reason you need to tilt the Pez candy platform down is because it has two small prongs on the front and back, making it slightly too long to come out of the colored plastic Pez case easily.

Notice the bumps along the side of the white plastic slide.  The bumps at the bottom prevent the slide from coming out of the colored case easily.  The bumps at the top prevent the white plastic slide from coming out of the bottom.

In case you’re curious, I was using my Pez dispenser for a Pez Powered Disc Shooter.

Preparing for a quest

A day or so ago I tried out a single TinkerCAD quest.  I then immediately completed all of them.¹  Frankly, I was kinda shocked they were as fun as they turned out to be.  If you haven’t given this a shot, I highly recommend trying it out.

Some of my favorite video games include what amounts to a learning level.  Your first goal is to complete a simple task using a set of features before really getting into the game.  By the time you’ve completed those simple tasks, you’re basically ready to tackle any of the obstacles in your way.  Many programs include initial help dialogs to point out the various buttons or even a learning mode, but most have you learn by viewing rather than learning by doing.

Given how much fun I have 3D printing, it’s very refreshing to also have a fun way to design as well.

1. Photo courtesy of Lrice [↩]

LED Micro-TARDIS by Bioluminescence

Thingiverse citizen Bioluminescence has contributed this magnificent Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, including a little glowing LED at the top.  It features a back panel that can slide into place, spaces for wire springs, batteries, and, of course, the glowing bit at the top.  Bioluminescence has also provided copious notes on their construction, even down to how to color the plastic with a blue sharpie to get just that right TARDIS-blue.  And, I always appreciate photos showing a design’s progression from prototype to final form. ¹

LED Micro-TARDIS by Bioluminescence

Who hasn't wanted their own TARDIS at some point? The Old Girl (or Sexy, as she prefers to be known) can be yours in miniaturized form, complete with light on top. This micro-TARDIS just looks small from the outside (5cm tall) - there's a lot more going on inside.---TARDIS Blue--- To get the best colo(u)r, I recommend printing with blue ABS, and covering it fairly evenly BEFORE printing, with a blue Sharpie. This changes the print colo(u)r from blue to dark blue. (Approx 0073CF to 0000B8)---Bits and Pieces--- You will need 1x 5mm LED (in white, blue or UV), some wire, 2x small cell batteries, and an empty drinks can (or similar). I've got some smaller LEDs coming in the mail, and I intend to get this small enough to attach to one of my infamous hair clips. The photograph shows my iterations, but it looks a bit like the TARDIS is moving through time in a way that only Baker-era special effects could claim ;)

This thing brought to you by

1. It’s all very Aristotelian.    [↩]

Hello RoHo connoisseurs!  It is, indeed, that time of the week, and we have prevailed against all odds to provide more mind-blowing infotainment despite constantly being on the verge of heat exhaustion all week.  This time, we’ve got some video of a very funny man being scanned, a demonstration of the import of infill (via sports equipment), and a high-temperature Thingiverse round-up.

Nerf Claymore Mine by diw08

This is the kind of warfare I can really get behind.  Settling disputes via Nerf dart.  While there are certainly several foam dart options on Thingiverse, this little dart claymore mine by diw08 is my new favorite.  I could see it being a part of an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine, a booby trap, sentry robot, or even as a part of a huge foam dart machine gun.  I’m really interested in seeing how this design progresses.  While not active at the time of this post, Diw08 has posted a streaming video feed for his Thing-O-Matic.

Nerf Claymore Mine by diw08

I've been wanting to create some nerf traps and thought I would start with a claymore. I'm hoping to make it spring loaded, firing 12 darts, and at least initially trip cord activated. It is very much a work in progress as I've coded one piece so far.

This thing brought to you by

You might have missed your chance to attend the live, pre-sold-out Impossible Girl show at the new MakerBot Workshop space, but here are a few glimpses of the fun.

Check out the live stream archive above and slideshow below!

Just a week after I bemoaned its absence, here we are: a printable Fleur De Lis.  Once again, Thingiverse rises to the challenge.  Is there anything that Thingiverse users can’t do?

I’m going to go with a “no” until definitively proven wrong, with an irrefutable proof in formal logic.  Thanks for continuing not to disprove me, phibroptic!

Fleur De Lis by phibroptic

My wife, and her old sorority, are big fans of the Fleur De Lis. (A decorative lily.) Also used (in various forms) by scouts, sports teams, and many others. When I finished assembling, testing, and calibrating my Thing-O-Matic, This was my first print as a way to thank her for indulging my nerdy obsessions. I didn't design it, I pulled it off the Google Sketchup warehouse. It can be found here sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=4cf07fb6cf4105169eeaab05b21288d and design should be credited to user Frisky Dingo.

This thing brought to you by

Rotary Sprinklers by Supermange

If you’re using Google Sketchup for designing 3D printable models, you may have noticed that exporting to STL’s using some of the various plugins can be very hit-or-miss.  After checking out Supermange’s rotary sprinklers I was reminded of this quick fix for a very common design problem in Google Sketchup – the “flipped face.”

Looking at the screenshot above, you’ll notice that the facets of the object are either a white-and-light-gray tone or a dark-gray-and-darker-gray tone.  As a surface modeler, Google Sketchup doesn’t much pay much attention to whether a surface is on the outside or inside of a model.  However, once you turn it into an STL, this can create problems.

Fortunately, this is an easy problem to fix.  All you need to do is right click on the darker face (such as much of the top right flange of the model above) and select “Reverse face” from the menu.  While you can select multiple faces at once and flip all of them simultaneously, this still leaves a minor, and somewhat tedious, problem of detecting the flipped faces in the first place.  If they are too numerous or tiny to locate, you might be better off using some STL correction software to fix the flipped faces.