Whether working with a shop, a local supplier or a company you think operates out of the Southern Guangdong province, there’s always a need to find a reputable manufacturing team that can take on your high capacity runs or one-off chunks of production-ready prints. Usually, a search for such a shop takes you online, and…
Once the cups had been organized by color, we were able to jump between them, hiding within their colored glass shells, looking over the edges to see if they were coming. Worn and weary, night fell, the light of the moon scattering through the walls. There inside, waiting, we realized they were surrounding us the…
Fasten back your face sacks, Develop3D Live is coming up in March… I think it’s March… Yes, I’ve just looked at the full moon shining across my garden shed shingles and it is indeed coming to you LIVE on March 26th, 2015. That’s a Thursday. It’s hands-down the best product development conference, and absolutely free…
The crushing smell of red pepper flakes pushed our heads against the grass and the leaves into the air. When we saw them, we knew they were not ordinary ditch rabbits. No, their goggles, whittled staves and flack jackets told otherwise. They were all too familiar with the red pepper whispers and were able to…
The tickle came not from the left, but from the right, along the edge of the ear then into the canal. Once the tail disappeared, so did the tickles. All went quiet, then the ringing, then the bark of a garden eel discussing time-lapsed photography theory in his subconscious. It was all he could do…
The container was split. All but two poured out, staying inside to ingest the remains. Every jar in the warehouse was infected. More came falling from the rafters, their furry fingers caked in five kind of frosting furiously devoured. The children, shocked by the scene could only do one thing now–summon the blazing heat of…
The second week of February is coming up, which means last minute plans for Valentine’s Day, Bacon Week and the SolidWorks World Conference. On February 8-11, SolidSmack will be in Phoenix, AZ covering the event, whilst avoiding rattlesnakes, rabid prairie dogs and (having good intentions of) ensuring everyone drinks and talks SolidWorks responsibly. With three…
It’s been a forest of quiet chirps, gentle rains and hidden high fives in Cambridge, MA, headquarters of Onshape. The company launched quietly in 2012 as Belmont Technology Inc. and started turning heads with an all-star roster of CAD industry elite. Now with a shapely new name and a team of nearly 100, you can…
They brandished their coils, sharp, fearsome, dripping with the ink of ages. A nonlethal threat should they dry, buy nay, not a day past without a letter, a sketch, a note. The scribbles shook foundations built on stale fears, twisted tales and blinded thought. Never would they fall, with pens enchanted by these links. David…
13 Inches of Awesome and a Projector. With a subtitle like 13 inches of Awesome, you may expect nothing but praise for the most innovative (we don’t use that word lightly) tablet we saw launch in 2014. If you recall, the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2 Pro is the device that was developed with actor Ashton Kutcher, who was brought…
There’s one thing you don’t have laying around your office this new year. A Chainsaw. A mini LEGO Chainsaw. It’s just sad, a person of your stature and arm strength, with no Mini LEGO Chainsaw. Let’s put an end to that this instant. František Hajdekr, from Bavorov, Czech Republic, creates all sorts of detailed LEGO…
When you’ve thrown all the plates and have begun tossing furballs laden with gum and colorful candies, you shouldn’t be surprised if they come flying back at you. For the beast, he does not like the candies, nor the gum. Why is this particularly upsetting to him? Why, for the simple reason they lack the…
On a Thursday in December, the truth finally comes out and we learn more about the the target demographic and messaging for large, 3D software development companies. According to Aurèlien Blaha, Senior Manager, Social Communications at Dassault Systèmes, “we mainly sell the software to Ewoks” to which we say, Yub nub. The news came earlier…
Early in those days the floor was covered with it. Not just the floors, but also the walls, the paths, the feed store and occasionally a small mammal that sat too still for too long. I wasn’t one of those. I kept moving. Slow at first, just to escape without being noticed. Then once the…
There they were, five of the baby yak mice walking along the stream, the wind blowing their wispy beards, not a care in the world, and yet is was such a tiny world, sealed off by an invisible border, flat by all accounts with an atmosphere red with plant gases weed spore, emanating from the…
Stop delicately gnawing that mahogany slab for a few seconds. Meredith Scheff-King has created a handy little layout of 50 Digital Joints. You heard me right. 50. Joints. Digitalooloo. Gazing upon the individual pages of Jochen Gross’ 50 Digital Wood Joints just wasn’t enough. Desiring to view, in a single glance, as many wood joints…
Aaaaaand, just like that. Autodesk 123D Web Apps are dead… From the 123D blog (emphasis added): “If you have been using the web based versions of the 123D apps that run in your browser, you probably noticed that they have gone bonkers. We’re well aware and have been anticipating the need to shut them down…
The chill was a jagged bolt that cut through the air. Many had fallen on that frozen grass, snowflakes and men, still to this day. Most had expressions of, “Get me a mug of chicken soup, it’s cold!” While others seemed caught by the explosion of ice that created the scene, blasting from the mouth of a wintering…
Store this under ‘early Christmas gift’ or ‘app to escape the post-Thursday turkey exhaustion.’ Mischief is now the sketch app from the Foundry, after a mid-November acquisition of Made with Mischief. They have Mac and Windows versions–cheap at a cost of only $25. With the news they announce a free version of Mischief. Most interesting… “Chris Cheung, who…
We rode all day. The dust, the dirt, the smoke, the buzz–not the kind from drinking their fermented milk, the kind you hear even in your sleep. However, it was the best way to move about the treacherous landscape, for they were a native species, able to adapt to the elements, and take on predators,…
When the bowls fell against the ground, the silence shattered, the kicks flew and spatters of oatmeal hit those in the blast radius. Any area of exposed skin was… well, let’s just say these oats were more like oat shards, or awesome shards, because we all know to make oats awesome, all it takes is…
“Ahh! That’s remarkable!” he says. “Ahh, but did you see what happens when you pop it up like… this!” “Ahh! that is a wonderful popping thing.” And *pop* it went. “Ahh! It did it once again with the pop!!” “What happens when you slap it?” “Ahh, I don’t know.” *SLAP* *pop* “Ahh!!” Laurie Greasley -…
Ahhhh. I tell you what, a hand-carved object is a breath of fresh wood shavings. In an age where we’re shocked at eating veggies straight from the garden and most can’t use a jackknife to shave a spear or hunt a squirrel, a guy with a lathe and a piece of native hardwood seems almost…
The chalk dust sank in the orbit of a damp atmosphere. No where had we been able to wet the ear furs so quickly, picking up sounds so subtle that a dead, floating insect would disintegrate against the vibrations. There was only one item that could cause this chaos, and we found it coated there…
The land went on for miles, blocks upon blocks of earth, cobblestone and fire. But food… food was scarce. There were ways we could we could survive. To spare the unease of your conscience however, I will tell you only this. Rabbit stew is tastier with red mushroom and a side of these links. Jakub…
A look out from the starboard bow captured the tide rising against a solid metal grate, consuming the water, but bullet-riddled, tarnished by soot and salt from the escaping burst of flames at sea level, repeatedly folded by the waves and battered by these links. Piotr Jabłoński – His 2D digital paintings capture strange characters…
If you like the Simpsons and you like Mathematics, this excerpt from The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets by Simon Singh is a must read. It could explain your attraction to such a show and, even though you push 3-dimensional objects around on a screen all day, could also explain some things you may have…
Combed hand and hair, the scent was unmistakably everywhere. A sound rose, and on tips, my toes. What was that crooked grin? A blanket of marmosets, scattering about and a leash attached to each. Holding the lead, the neck wrecker reached and gnawed upon these links. Mike Hill – Plenty of ships and scenes with…
Today, President Barack Obama, did a first. He published an article on Medium, a crowd-driven story publishing site. It didn’t have to do with any crazy policies or world events. It was about makers, the ‘new economy,’ and how students are pushing America forward. “I saw this new economy at Pittsburgh’s TechShop, one in a…
When your desktop, coffee table or countertop is covered in nothing but papers and pizza stains, there are two things you need–A low-maintenance, oxygen-producing plant and a ceramic animal sculpt. It is then people will say things such as, “My what eclectic taste they have. I want to be their friend.” Plants are easy to…
Ever feel like you’re working on a project FOREVER? It’s evident when you look over in the mirror at work and you’ve turned into a 120 year old man with half a mouth of teeth. It’s not all that bad though. Eventually, things will get done. As Jason Fried puts it, it’s hard to live…
By the looks of your scarred hands covered in dried glue and scabs, I’m guessing you like to cut up a few sheet of cardboard here and there for building models or, just for fun. Although those wounds are part of the joy (and looks of disgust when you shake someone’s hand), there are less…
Crisscrossed, chased and blown by dust blasts that passed the shot of air into her legs as she sprinted by the launch ports, finding enough of the spot-haired lox’s mane aphids, the escape could be made, but quickly. For the queen had sensed the entrapment, the missing fleece fleas, summoning the drones with the sound…
“Pops a’ribbon,” he says. That’s all the cantankerous old turtle could muster once squeezed from the hole by his tiny titmouse nemesis. They could both dance, but the agile legs of the mouse were too fast. Poor turtle would have to think fast, working in imaginative use of his ukulele and, yes, these links. Pascal…
If you’ve been in product development for any number of years, you know a person’s productivity is directly proportional to the size of their screen. You also know that’s completely unsubstantiated. Still, we like’em big. The more monitors floating above the desk, the better 3d software obeys our bidding (also unsubstantiated). 22″ and 24″ monitors…
Of all the robot apocalypse scenarios that cross your mind on any given day, who would have thought one would be a autonomous, rubbery, four-legged crawl-bot? With a design that looks more like an drunk Alien facehugger than a Darpa creation, the soft robot contains no rigid skeleton and can move all 25 inches of…
Torn into a small notch, the ribs fell, knocking against other fragments, until the light and pellets of dust scattered thin. Noise drifted through the chamber, wide open now, except for the edges of feet in the shadows and the cracking of knuckles. The cracking of knuckles–it was that which finally led to the freakish…
The push was hard. The gear, a chunk of wood that twisted with the strain on the oars. We pushed, wrapping the length of squirrel tails every tighter around the spindle, twisting, slipping and shooting poofs of fur as we fastened it back. The catapult was set, the pocket was loaded, the enemy would soon…
They come in peace. Interesting insight from Scott Eckert, who is making robot happen with Rethink Robotics founder Rodney Brooks and their product Baxter, the human-friendly, assembly-line co-worker… “…a year-and-a-half after Baxter’s commercial debut, manufacturers who’ve added the bot into the mix haven’t laid anyone off as a result, according to Brooks’ company, Rethink Robotics…
I love me a high-precision, interlocking aluminum light fixture. You would be hard pressed to fall out of a two-story window and land on a truck full of anything of the sort these days. However, the scrap-savvy, layer-lovin’ crew at Graypants, Inc. has created, perhaps, the most ingenious of all lighting designs in an effort…
Joey Pepper, skateboarder extraordinaire shows how “everything is about the process” in his life as a woodcrafter making freeform objects and his first canoe. “Growing up, my whole family, they worked in the wood industry, they were all loggers. So, one day I just kinda decided I wanted to learn more. I started building stuff…
When going along the shingled edge, busy with squirrels and dried paths of slugs, it’s best to recall the times that you fell, the lava below, the conch shell you blow that summons the cats and the list of these links as you dove. Nick Runge – A handful of incredible hand-painted cover illustration from…
Sure, self-driving (flying?) cars are the future, but if everything and everyone are connected, why do we need lights? “In the long term, you could wonder why we even need traffic lights,” says Stiller, who predicts that every car will be equipped with communications within 30 years. “If all traffic participants will be equipped with…
A tear falls on the molten plastic heap outside the confines of the 3d printer base. The print bed is too small. It’s sadness that creeps in at times, leaving us to scale down or chop up our designs. “But the model has already been created as a single, solid piece!” More tears. There’s a…
Tilting, he was a wobbly chap! His ears flopping with each hop. Why I recall the time he uproots an entire crabapple grove with one paw and the twitch of his bushy tail. Some say it was the hugs from a radioactive girl, others say a carrot from the nether reaches. I? Well I say…
If you’re like my grandma, you’ll pop a rum raisin in your mouth and say, “I’ve seen every iPad case, pack, flap and stand that’s been squeezed from a designer’s forehead pores!” True, there are many iPad cases, but every once in a while, someone actually thinks of the problems that come with the burden…
Nathan S. Jacobs explains how your photo-receptors and brain assemble visual information into the 3-dimensional world you see around you. “…edges should get extra attention, because things with edges can help you or kill you.” http://youtu.be/rfdJyDfIHIc
Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think gives that final bit of insight to help figure out how you really get things done–work like you’re going on vacation. “The deadline of leaving is the thing that’s finally going to motivate you to get it done. The stuff that gets…
There are five things I want after designing a part–a damn part, damn fast. 3D printing was suppose to be the revolutionary technology that made all our manufacturing woes go away, speed the whole process up and leave machinists in a wake of plastic fumes and corporate laughter. DMLS still holds high hopes for production…
Sometime when you’re scrubbing the back of a venomous, speckle-throated platypus, you’ll notice its legs start to contract until the entire animal is a perfectly spherical fur ball with a bill. This is when you tap the bill twice, then open it to reveal these links. Aldo Katayanagi – Somewhat dark, somewhat colorful, somewhat brooding,…