This is the second entry in a series of posts discussing MakerBot & Miniatures.  Check out last week’s post!

My journey to 3D modeling started at a drafting board and most of my CAD work still ends up in two dimensions on a piece of paper as a plan, section or elevation.  As many of the things I model in CAD are much larger than a piece of paper, it is common practice to create full scale geometry in a CAD program, and then choose a scale in which to depict the project in a layout. When I sat down to design my first model for 3D printing, I wasn’t sure how to get started.  Should I continue to create in full scale, and then scale down when I wanted to make it with my MakerBot?  Or should I design directly in scale?  I currently use both methods in my work, and today I’ll talk through the pros and cons of each approach.

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Earlier this week, I appeared on MakerBot TV to chat with Annelise about how I use my MakerBot in my work. As a part of my job as a scenic designer, I create scale models of theatre sets.  Are you curious about how you might put a MakerBot to work on your scale project?  Want to hop on the playsets bandwagon? I’ve put together a short blog series about getting started working in scale.

This week, we’ll learn about scale factors and use a bit of miniature math to consider what scale to work in.  Stay tuned for more in coming weeks! Read the rest of this entry »

Today we’ll meet with MakerBot operator and Broadway set designer Kacie Hultgren. Kacie has made a number of incredible contributions to Thingiverse under the user name PrettySmallThings including her well-known Queen Anne Chairs, the oversized armchair, her SciFi Control Room and whole array of beautiful and delicate tiny pieces of furniture. Find out what she’s doing with all of her prints and why she considers the MakerBot an ideal tool for someone who uses their apartment as a workspace.

Kacie will be doing some guest blogging for us in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes on our blog for some really helpful insights into her process!

In response to a couple of conversations, here’s a video of a gorgeous 3D-printed chair and a pretty funky dancing robot (notice the choreography at the end).

 

 
The plastic used in the printing above is recycled from old refrigerators and other appliances. The chair is from a line of “Endless” furniture from Dirk Vander Kooij, and will be on display at Milan Furniture Fair next week.

This reminded me of a tweet from Shawn Grover (@open2space) asked us what to do with discarded rafts and scrap plastic. Our high-grade, virgin ABS unfortunately is often not accepted in many municipalities, since it lacks a Recycling logo. The material is, however, recyclable. Perhaps Shawn should devise a kind of ABS puck maker to imprint the well-known symbol onto a chunk discarded ABS and put it up on Thingiverse!

The video also made me think of points by AKron, Joe Larson, and danman on this post. We were discussing the possibility of the physical features that are native to things printed through extrusion. To my eye, the low-res process in this video adds a ribbing to the chair that is quite appealing. Joe thinks the problems will be “fixed” as printing moves toward higher and higher resolution, and he is surely right. But I’d almost prefer the chair above to the same shape with a smooth finish.

 

For millions of Mad Men fans, last night brought long-awaited relief to many months of wondering. Will Don Draper really marry his secretary? Can Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce keep the lights on? What will Joan Harris do about the baby?

No spoilers or reviews here, but one area we can say for certain the show delivered in was its consistently gorgeous set design. The two-hour premiere of Season 5 took place primarily in the office of the firm; however, we got a great look at the palatial apartment shared by Don and his new wife, Megan. With a sunken living room and miles of what Don called impractical white carpeting, the apartment is a perfectly executed 60’s dream home.

The new pad creates the perfect context for the Madiverse play set TeamTeamUSA has been cooking up for a week. This weekend saw a few remarkable additions to the set, complimented by a lamp from BenitoSanduchi. Feast your eyes on these awesome pieces, then follow the links and print your own. It sure would be nice to see them all together, too!

For those of you just joining us, the designs and instructions for making all of these pieces are available absolutely free on Thingiverse!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Day 4 of Madiverse, and the Thing I want to post, tbuser’s model of the Mad Men falling man image, has apparently yet to be printed. This may be a problem if your office isn’t packed with 3D printers, but in my case it’s a relatively simple situation to fix.

But here’s the catch: I’ve never printed anything. I have marveled at the design and engineering going on around me, and the incredible ingenuity on display at Thingiverse. But I have secretly worried that there was a something I didn’t know – a code or a handshake I hadn’t been brought into yet – and that diving into my first print would be more of a weekend project than a task between tasks.

I was way wrong. This is a user-friendly, relatively quick process. I saw my Thing on Thingiverse, clicked download, opened the file in ReplicatorG, followed a few simple steps, and saved it to my SD Card. Certainly the entire creation process can be a thousand steps more complicated, but as a first time user, the timeline from finding to holding was pleasantly simple.

After my first attempt, the Falling Man was looking less dapper Madison Avenue culture maker, and more pile of black spaghetti.

Calibration to the rescue! A small adjustment to the platform, and my print was on the way.

So without further ado, here is my first addition to Thingiverse. I’m taking him home and lining his back with magnet strip. Who better to hold my doodles to the fridge door than Don Draper himself?

It’s the perfect time of day for this latest addition to Madiverse, the Thingiverse series inspired by All-Star user TeamTeamUSA.

In front of yesterday’s 1960′s sofa, we place this model of a Noguchi coffee table.

Be sure to check the Thingiverse page for this item. Miles provides plenty of good tips for constructing the piece, which as you can see includes cut plastic as well as an elegant printed piece.

 

Are you feeling it, friends? The descent into secrets and scotch? The picture above is a mesmerizing TSP drawing from resident thing-genie MakerBlock. Follow the links for a bunch more TSP art, including other Mad Men pieces.

Earlier we had a beautiful little sofa from PrettyLittleThings, here with another addition to the Madiverse series is TeamTeamUSA. Behold the Jacobsen Egg Chair in fuchsa!

Only five days left until the Mad Men premiere, and we have another addition to the Mad Men playset project, Madiverse, started by TeamTeamUSA.

Here, for your collection, a 1:24 scale 60′s era sofa, from PrettySmallThings (the genius behind this Sci Fi Control Room model, and a huge part of our MakerBot Moonbase and Fairytale Castle Playsets). The tufted back detail of the sofa looks just right, and the shape on those cushions looks inviting for a 3 o’clock nap! What color would be right for the upholstery?

For those of you who may consider printing this, PrettySmallThings indicates that this was printed in her “ favorite working scale of 1:24, but you should scale by 1.5 if you intend to use with the rest of the Madiverse collection.” We’d love to hear more from this awesome modeler on how she uses scale in her work.

A mere month and a half ago, a small, disgruntled groundhog, also apparently known as a woodchuck, was yanked from his comfort zone to bestow some prophecy on us. As conflicted as I am about this practice, I am so happy that we now know there is only another week before…

Mad Men returns.

One of our genius community members, Miles of TeamTeamUSA, has used his love of the TV show and mid-century design as inspiration for a series of Things on Thingiverse. TeamTeamUSA, lest we forget, is also the brain behind Project Shellter.

Miles’ goal is to create a full Mad Men playset by the time the show premieres on Sunday.¹ His first few Things are absolutely fantastic. Here are a couple things to keep in mind:

• Miles suggests sanding or filing your finished pieces or the components of your pieces to get smooth edges.
• If you don’t have appropriate filament colors, take the extra step to paint or color your pieces with permanent marker.

Here are the first three pieces in the Mad Men Playset. We’ll be posting on this throughout the week, leading up to Sunday’s show. We can’t wait to see what our community members come up with!

Be sure to:

1. Upload your designs to Thingiverse and tag them with “Madiverse”.
2. Share your creations with us over twitter with the hashtag #Madiverse.

 

1. That’s Sunday, March 25, 9-11pm EDT, 2012 C.E. [↩]