Project Shellter has been getting a lot of love from the media this week. At this rate, Paris Shellton and Tori Shelling (the stars of the Brooklyn crabitat) will be international superstars in no time!
Check out some of the coverage that’s run so far:
This guest post is the second part of a two part interview with Project Shellter research advisor, Dr. Katherine V. Bulinski. Part one is available here.
Miles Lightwood (ML): Another idea you shared was an alternate approach to addressing the shortage with printed shells. Please explain.
Dr. Katherine Bulinski (KB): One approach that was initially considered is that these printed shells could be distributed in the natural habitat if a hermit crab shortage had been identified. We discussed the use of biodegradable plastics for such an application so that the environmental impact should be less than if you used a non-biodegradable plastic. I think it is very important to be wary of manipulating a natural ecosystem by introducing man-made (or in this case, machine made) products as we may not recognize all of the possible effects of our actions.
Another more immediately practical approach would be to encourage people that have hermit crabs to use the printed shells instead of the natural shells available at pet stores. Part of the reason for the shell shortage in some parts of the world is over-collecting of shells in different regions. In the natural environment, empty snail shells would either be used by a hermit crab, be broken apart naturally to become carbonate sand, slowly dissolve into ocean water, become buried or become a surface for small organisms to grow on. When possible we should try to leave natural ecosystems as untouched by people as possible, so printing shells for commercial use so that natural shells can remain a part of the ecosystem would be a positive goal for this project.
ML: Is there any advice or insight on hermit crabs or their shells you can provide for Project Shellter contributors?
KB: Hermit crabs evolved over time to use the shells of certain species of gastropod as homes. Most snail shells curve to the right and hermit crabs evolved to have an abdomen that curves to the right to make effective use of the shape of the snail shell. In my paper I cite research that shows crabs select shells based upon several criteria:
When printing shells for this project it may be necessary to experiment with any or all of these properties to create a shell that a hermit crab will call home. Additionally, the interior surface of a natural shell is smooth, so the lines I see on 3D prints might need to be sanded or otherwise smoothed.
ML: Do you have any last thoughts to share with Project Shellter contributors?
KB: Hermit crabs play an important scavenging role in both marine and terrestrial ecosystems and I hope this project helps to conserve the snail shells that are found in their natural habitat. I wish all contributors success and am looking forward to watching the project unfold!
ML: One more thing: do you think a printed shell will have the sound of the ocean in it like a real one?
KB: (Laughs) I don’t know, but there’s only one way to find out!
Thank you Dr. Bulinski for acting as research advisor! I look forward to sharing the crowd-sourced science of Project Shellter with you.
Project Shellter is social! Follow, share and contribute to help save hermit crabs by keeping natural shells in the wild!
| Tagged with | dr. katherine bulinski, hermit crab, hermit crab shell, miles lightwood, project shellter, save the hermit crabs, shell, shells, shellter, shelter, teamteamusa | One comment |
This guest post is part one of a two part interview with Project Shellter research advisor, Dr. Katherine V. Bulinski.
I’ve asked Dr. Katherine V. Bulinski to serve as research advisor on Project Shellter. This interview was conducted via phone and email before and after Dr. Bulinski journeyed to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands as part of her work as a Professor of Geoscience at Bellarmine University.
Miles Lightwood (ML): I was introduced to your work while researching Project Shellter. Would you please describe your involvement with hermit crabs?
Dr. Katherine Bulinski (KB): Sure. I’ve always been fascinated with hermit crabs and had them as pets when I was a kid, and actually still do! As part of my graduate studies I was fortunate enough to work with hermit crabs in a scientific context as a side project greatly differing from my main research area which broadly speaking, is an investigation of the paleoecology and diversity of fossil marine invertebrates.
The hermit crab project began as a part of a field course on predator prey interactions at Friday Harbor Laboratory on Puget Sound in Washington state. I designed a study that tested hermit crab shell selection behavior when subjected to a variety of different experimental conditions including the presence of competition by other hermit crabs and the threat of an active predator. The study revealed that the hermit crabs in the study were least likely to switch shells when exposed to other hermit crabs, which may be an indication that competition for shells is actually a greater danger to the crabs than predators. This study was published with the title “Shell-Selection Behavior of the Hermit Crab Pagurus granosimanus in Relation to Isolation, Competition, and Predation” in the Journal of Shellfish Research (2007). I hope some of my knowledge about hermit crab behavior can be beneficial to the project.
ML: In layperson’s terms, please describe what a hermit crab is and its place within the ecosystem.
KB: Sure. A hermit crab is a type of crustacean (the group that contains lobsters, shrimp and crabs among other organisms) and hermit crabs have a fossil record extending back to the Cretaceous (when dinosaurs were still roaming the earth). Hermit crabs are different from most other crustaceans in that their abdomen is not covered with an exoskeleton. For this reason, the crab needs to cover their vulnerable soft body part with a protective covering, which in most cases is the shell left behind by a deceased snail. As the hermit crabs grow, they need to find larger and larger shells. When adequately sized shells are unavailable, the desperate crabs either occupy shells that are much too small for them, or may occupy whatever they can find: broken beer bottles, shotgun shells, plastic pipe. It’s sad to see.
One of the reasons why I love hermit crabs is that contrary to their name, hermit crabs are very social creatures. In the wild, they can live in groups of hundreds or even thousands (I saw a huge colony while traveling in Panama a few years ago), climbing atop one another while scavenging for food and are frequently investigating shells (whether they are empty or occupied by a snail or fellow hermit crab) as they search for a better “home”. Living in a colony ensures a wide selection of differently sized shells will be available – essential for growing crabs.
ML: We discussed some of the experiment design for the project, and you suggested several interesting strategies.
KB: Yes, well-designed experiments are critical for good science. We recently discussed the layout of the crab habitat, or the “crabitat” and established that if we wish to encourage shell switching behaviors, it should not be setup as it might be for pet hermit crabs. While it is important to provide lots of moist sand, water and food, there should not be any other objects in the crabitat (like sticks to crawl on). The removal of these items would increase the likelihood that the crabs would investigate the printed shells. Once experimentation is over, the various huts and branches that make for excellent additions to a pet hermit crab terrarium can be introduced to the crabitat.
We also discussed that the various models of the printed shells should also be identified in some way. Since the plastic comes in different colors, coloration is an easy way to distinguish one shell design from another. Numbering them is another.
The interest in the use of printed shells can be assessed in a few ways:
Part two of the interview will be available tomorrow!
Project Shellter is social! Follow, share and contribute to help save hermit crabs by keeping natural shells in the wild!
Big ups to Dropcam for supporting the project and being the first official sponsor of Project Shellter. They sent us two dropcams and the first one at the Botcave is live! Hermit crabs are nocturnal creatures so they’ll move around more at night! Do your part to participate in Project Shellter and keep watch over the live feed and drop a comment if you see them do anything interesting like try and climb into one of the printed shells!
| Tagged with | dropcam, hermit crab, hermit crab shell, miles lightwood, project shellter, save the hermit crabs, shell, shellter, shelter, teamteamusa | 5 comments |
This is one of several guest posts I’ll be making during the Project Shellter residency.
While Project Shellter is new, it did not emerge from a vacuum. Exploration into the mathematics of sea shells dates back decades, and the desire to help out hermit crabs, years. Project Shellter benefits from these investigations and innovations.
In chronological order, here is a partial list of precedents that inform the project.
In the 1960s, interest in the beauty and mathematics of sea shells held the attention of computer graphics pioneers. One of the first to publish his findings was David M. Raup. His landmark papers have informed generations of researchers since, serving as canonical references within the fields of both biological and computer science.
Glass blowers have created shells that are beautiful and photogenic. However, due to cost and the rambunctious nature of happy healthy hermit crabs – a broken shell could be fatal – glass shells are a seldom-used novelty. This image by photographer Frank Greenaway was created in 2004.
In 2005, Dr. Elizabeth Demaray and a group of engineering students at Rutgers University explored alternative hermit crab shell designs. The Hand Up Project was the culmination of their research and it was the first project to use rapid prototyping materials and processes to manufacture hermit crab shells.
Building on these and other precedents, Project Shellter aims to engage the community of 3D printer operators to crowd-source the science and resources necessary to design and manufacture viable hermit crab shells for domestic use. The goal is to reduce harvesting of natural shells as a way to address shortages in the wild.
It is an open source, pragmatic, social investigation into hermit crab behavior as a means to create 3D printable shells. The public nature of the project is designed to encourage simultaneous investigations.
The first prototype shell model has been placed in the public domain and is available now.
Project Shellter is social! Follow, share and contribute to help save hermit crabs by keeping natural shells in the wild!
For those wishing to dig deeper, here is a partial bibliography of research informing Project Shellter.
Computer as Aid in Describing Form in Gastropod Shells
Geometric Analysis of Shell Coiling: General Problems
Population Consequences of Shell Utilization by Hermit Crabs
Competition and Mechanism of Coexistence in Three Sympatric of Intertidal Hermit Crabs
| Tagged with | hermit crab, hermit crab shell, miles lightwood, project shellter, save the hermit crabs, shell, shells, shellter, shelter, teamteamusa | Leave a comment |
This week on MakerBot TV hear all about how MakerBot Industries and Miles Lightwood are using 3D printing to help out hermit crabs, also find out how you can use your makerbot to prepare yourself for halloween and get a tour of NYC with MakerBot’s new mascot!
Special Thanks to Thingiverse user Fido for the evil eyes earwear and ghost keyring designs, daviddotshaw for the bat, ghost and pumpkin magnet designs, builttospec for the spider ring, colehard for the pumpkin, Wajazn for the MB/RepRap jack-o-lantern, nicholasclewis for the spider web, lampmaker for the glasses, and SuperAmi for the pirate hook. And a special thanks to Kevin MacLeod and Alan Bjorklund for the music.
Update:
There seems to be a some misunderstandings about the project. Here are some clarifications:
Hermit crabs don’t make their own shells. They scavenge their homes. And now, hermit crabs are facing a housing shortage as the worldwide shell supply is decreasing. With a shell shortage, hermit crabs around the world are being forced to stick their butts into bottles, shotgun shells, and anything else they can find. This is not acceptable. As a community, we can reach out to this vulnerable species and offer our digital design skills and 3D printing capabilities and give hermit crabs another option: 3D printed shells.
Miles Lightwood, AKA TeamTeamUSA, is doing exactly that as an artist in residence here at MakerBot. His big project is Project Shellter, to provide 3D printed shells for hermit crabs the world over. We are inviting all MakerBot Operators and digital designers on Thingiverse to design shells and participate in SCIENCE!
We’ve set up a crab habitat, a crabitat, here at the Botcave in Brooklyn and Miles is setting up a crabitat in Los Angeles. We need help from the community to design shells so we can print them out and see if the hermit crabs like them. Can you design a shell that hermit crabs will like? We’ll print them out here at the botcave, put them in the crabitats and see which designs the hermit crabs will move into. Will they like ABS or PLA? Will they prefer one color over another? Will they even consider a 3D printed shell? We won’t know until we use empirical science and test it out. If you participate in the project, use the hashtag #SHELLTER on twitter so that we can all track what’s going on. You can follow Project Shellter on Facebook too!
This is a new frontier of crowdsourced science. Please design shells that you think a hermit crab would like and upload them to thingiverse and tag them with “SHELLTER.” Miles will be posting a summary of his research on design parameters for hermit crab shells next. If you design them, together we’ll do science and find a way to solve the hermit crab housing problem.
Got feedback or ideas? Drop a note in the comments.
| Tagged with | crab-cam, crabitat, hermit crab, hermit crab shell, miles lightwood, project shellter, save the hermit crabs, shell, shells, shellter, shelter, teamteamusa | 51 comments |
Fairly accurate model of a Boeing 737 300 series. Modeled using CAD elevations from Boeing's website:boeing.com/commercial/airports/3_view.html…
