Let’s be honest here: talking about new 3D printers has become an almost nauseating exercise. From Kickstarter dreams to different sizes of MakerBots, very little has truly changed the game of speed, quality and cost of getting something 3D printed. The Multi Jet Fusion technology announced by HP this morning has not only changed the…
Inventables, a department store-like supplier for those who invent physical objects has released their first personally-designed product this morning on Kickstarter in the form of Carvey. Billed as a ‘3D Carver’, the desktop manufacturing machine soared past its funding goal in less than 90 minutes earlier this morning and is close to already tripling their…
For those who missed it, yesterday, 14th October was Ada Lovelace Day. It is a day dedicated to commemorate the achievements of women in STEM, i.e. science, technology, engineering and maths. In an era where the likes of Satya Nadella (Microsoft’s CEO) undermine the prowess of women, I guess it’s important to celebrate everyday as…
Time for another round of apps that cover the spectrum of your beloved mobile device, be it iPhone, Android or Windows! The Weekly App Smack is the best of design and productivity apps (and maybe a couple of fun ones, too) for the busy design or engineering professional and this week we have a list…
3D printers are great for making personalized object designs, but they typically don’t allow for customization while augmenting design parameters on the fly. This becomes a problem for those who want to design customized items such as personalized face masks, jewelry or irregular-sized parts for ‘not-quite-right’ projects. Norwegian-based software company Uformia is looking to solve…
With over 60,000 people in attendance last year, MAKE Magazine’s World Maker Faire NYC is more than just a science fair now; it’s a full-blown circus. The annual gathering of tinkerers, hackers, DIYers and those that love them had another successful year this past weekend thanks to good weather and a growing list of ‘Makers’…
We’ve been known to like GrabCAD a whole lot here on SolidSmack. While the list of reasons ‘why’ is quite long, we can sum it up by saying that similar to our friend Al Dean over at Develop3D, we have been believers in the company from day one and have enjoyed watching it grow up…
Whether or not 3D printing an actual car makes absolute sense, somebody had to be the first do it properly. Naturally, that would be Local Motors, the crowdsourced automotive design hub and makers of the Rally Fighter. The company made history this past weekend when they introduced their hyped ‘Strati 3D printed car’ concept that,…
We’ve all grown up to playing with Slinky for endless hours, and if as a zesty DIY-er you think you’ve outgrown them – think again. Adam Watters has upped his cool quotient by a million and promises to up our by at least a hundred notches, if we simply follow his instructions as seen here.
When MakerBot Industries was founded by Adam Mayer, Bre Pettis and Zach “Hoeken” Smith in early 2009, few (especially Adam, Bre and Zach) could have ever expected that the company would have taken off as much as it has. With a handful of ‘MakerBot boutiques’, store-within-a-store deals with Microsoft and Home Depot, a huge factory…
Someone rightly stated that ‘if we don’t want a generation of robots, someone should fund the arts!’ No matter how good a read the article on Scott Eckert and the Baxter Robot is, the truth of the matter is that mechanical muscle is replace the human element. Companies like Rethink Robotics are changing the way…
As they say, there are two sides to the same coin; one side allows us to unleash our creative instincts and tap into the limitless possibilities of 3D printing and on the other side we have the wicked minds who can use it to abuse their power of imagination. The possibility of increasing theft via…
Almost exactly a month ago, SolidSmack reported that popular toymaker Hasbro would be teaming up with Shapeways to offer My Little Pony fans (AKA Bronies) the option to 3D print and sell their own creations based on the Hasbro-owned content via their new(ish) SuperFanArt platform. As we predicted, the experimental move into user-created licensed content…
For the ZBrush fanatics out there with a penchant for ooey-gooey digital clay modeling, this past weekend was an exciting one if you happened to be in Hollywood, California for the 2014 ZBrush Summit. The three-day event at the Gnomon Workshop featured everything from guest speakers and workshops to product demos and inspirational keynotes. Perhaps…
As if handling tiny watch screws wasn’t hard enough, has anybody taken a second to think about how much precision goes into making the dang things? Touted as having ‘the highest precision on the market’, the SwissNano is one of many machines offered by the reputable Tornos brand and is designed for fabricating nearly 2/3…
Being touted as “a revolution in consumer 3D printing”, the newly-announced Solidoodle Press is Solidoodle’s answer for those seeking a true plug-and-play machine in a sleek and space-saving enclosed package. With the goal of creating a seamless user experience for the consumer 3D printer market, the Press includes a re-engineered internal setup that makes the…
Billed as a platform for bike craft, design and innovation, the Oregon Manifest is one of the most exciting annual events in the realm of bicycle design. The event pairs together talented design studios and small bicycle crafters to create their combined vision of what the Urban Bicycle of the Future will look like…and then…
The good folks at Sculptify are gearing up for an August-based Kickstarter Campaign to help fund the production of ‘David’ 3D Printer. The reason why you should keep an eye on this project is because this plastic extrusion 3D printer does not use expensive filament but plastic pellets to print your designs.
Perhaps inspired by MakerBot’s recent addition of Sesame Street-branded content into their Thingiverse 3D model-sharing platform, Shapeways and Hasbro have teamed up to offer branded My Little Pony content to those willing to fork up to $100 for one of the bright and colorful accessories. Operating under the site SuperFanArt (on a side note…you couldn’t…
With a jury of twenty-four established designers who have ‘been there and done that’, taking home one of the 176 trophies in the annual IDSA IDEA Awards is certainly no easy feat. Between Fifty-Three’s stylus and new start up PillPack’s innovative take on the prescription medication user experience (designed in partnership with IDEO), the IDEA…
Shapeways and Google’s new Made with Code initiative thinks that the best way to make young girls ditch girlie stuff for learning codes is by inspiring them to create 3D bracelets, style a #selfie, learn how to animate GIF, design 2D Avatars and other cool stuff by coding them from scratch. The whole mission sounds…
Here on SolidSmack we’re always on the lookout for cool projects. Sure, our readers love to take a juicy sketch and model it up in CAD for a slick 3D print or a more involved manufactured product, but sometimes it’s the simple and easy projects that can help keep our creative itch scratched…especially on the…
Aiming to be the ‘One-Stop Shop’ for all your 3D printing needs, iMakr has been met with an enthusiastic response since opening their first store in London in 2013. Since the opening, they have expanded their online store to include everything from an expansive range of 3D printers to fit any budget as well as…
I swore I would never buy a Replicator 2 — I don’t trust companies led with charisma. Then the sleepless nights began. I couldn’t get the beautiful black metal chassis out of my head. Three point leveling. That squirrel cage extrusion cooling fan…yowzahs. Finally, after many a late night sneaking out of bed and into the study…
With both an impressive knowledge base of how industrial plastic manufacturing machines work as well as his desire to repurpose plastic waste, Dutch designer Dave Hakkens has created an open source microfactory concept that he hopes will change the way we produce everyday plastic goods. Precious Plastic explores how plastic waste can be shredded and…
Already the king of crowdfunding, Kickstarter has announced today that they will speed up the approval process in an effort to make it easier for people to get their campaigns launched and their ideas out in the world. Announced in a blog post this morning from Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler, the new ‘Launch Now’ feature…
We are not here to debate the legality surrounding the possession of guns, but to merely ponder on how things can get out of hand when you don’t take the time to learn about laws in your country and to recognize how 3D printing is making manufacturing possible. First, if ownership of guns is illegal…
At the recent Milan Design Week, the very innovative company IVANKA constructed a temporary installation that showcased their creative genius of turning rainwater into high-quality, pure drinking water. The rainwater was filtered through a distinctive bio-concrete system, making it one of the smartest and efficient way of purifying rain. What makes this project important is…
Artist, Designer and Inventor Joshua Harker (yes, he of Crania Anatomica Filigre fame) is at it again with an all-new Kickstarter campaign. After having raised over $75,000 for his 3D printed skull–which is still the most-funded sculpture project ever on Kickstarter–Harker is exploring new territory with the goal to help raise funds towards developing next-generation…
Well, slap my arm flaps. SolidSmack went and turned 7 on us with hardly a grunt! Yes, it’s true. If you’ve been a loyal SolidSmack reader since the beginning, you’ve aged seven whole years–quite well I might add. As for SolidSmack, we’ve enjoyed having you along, and today we’re celebrating with a makeover to the…
In case you missed the release last week of MODO 801, there were some announcements made that might be of interest to all you product designers who might still be on the fence with jumping into MODO or not. The new 801 release of the powerful modeling and rendering tool aims to make working with…
Having been criticized about their contribution to e-waste in the past, Apple has been working tirelessly to reverse their image and set themselves more in line with what is the environmental equivalent of their design ethos. Released by Apple in honor of Earth Day today, ‘Better’ aims to show Apple’s commitment to putting the Cradle…
Brought to you this week by a four-headed turtle dove devouring a spaghetti squirrel in a rum-soaked muffin tree, be sure to check out the all new episode of Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff! By the way, we love our SolidSmack readers! Have something cool you’ve come across and want to share it on…
When the 3Doodler launched on Kickstarter a little over a year ago, it was met with enthusiasm to the tune of a little over $2.34 million USD. While it certainly broke the mold of what a 3D printer ‘could’ be, it was also met with certain limitations ranging from size to filament options…but that didn’t…
Since they came on the scene around a year ago, botObjects and their ProDesk3D 3D printer have been criticized, ridiculed and threatened due to controversial product renderings, failed shipments, and lackluster customer service. There was even a Twitter account created for those who pre-ordered a ProDesk3D to vent their frustrations. Well, in an effort to…
While the MakerBot Replicator 2 has been the go-to for consumers, the $2199 (note: the price recently dropped to $1999) price tag has still been a bit of a hurdle for consumers not quite sure about the application of 3D printing in their day-to-day lives. The Micro 3D Printer just might be the first consumer-friendly…
We’ve seen our fair share of April Fools’ Day product design spoofs over the past few years that have actually been somewhat believable…if it wasn’t for the fact that the press release came out on April 1st. Yesterday was no exception and between products like the Sphero SelfieBot and the falconry-inspired ‘Twitter Helmet’, those in…
Between the new Mod Notebooks that include return postage for digitizing your analog sketches as well as other sketch tools such as the new(ish) Wacom Cintiq Companion, designers and engineers looking to get their ideas on ‘paper’ have never had as many options for getting their ideas out there as they do today. Perhaps one…
This week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist brings an entirely new face-smack of great music to help propel you through those laborious, tedious design tasks for the next few days. This week we’ll start our smooth vibrations with a classic from Glasser and work our way through some Blood Orange, Darkside, Chromatics, Dean & Britta and…
The 2014 Geneva Autoshow is in full swing this week and one of the most hyped announcements is that of Apple integrating their user experience into a variety of cars starting later this year called CarPlay. So far we’ve only seen the UE in pictures, but as part of the announcement for their new XC90…
It seems like people in the product design community didn’t really take notice of Kickstarter until Scott Wilson and his group of talented designers at MNML raised nearly $1 million for their TikTok+LunaTik Multi-Touch Watch Kits. The kits—which were essentially a bezel and wristband to convert an iPod Nano into a digital wristwatch—ushered in a…
Premiering next week at SXSW in Austin, Print the Legend is set to be the first non-YouTube documentary that focuses on the rise of the 3D Printing community and the stories we’ve come to read almost weekly that go with it. Featuring in-depth footage of 3D printing newsmakers ranging from Bre Pettis to Cody Wilson…
In case you didn’t catch our EngineerVsDesigner episode last year that featured BotObjects founders Mike Duma and Martin Warner discussing the development of their ProDesk3D full-color 3D printer, it was one of our most popular and most-commented episodes of all time…and for good reason. At the time, affordable full-color 3D printing was a relatively new…
Currently accepting entries, the first Women in Industrial Design show is the first show aimed at bringing attention to the female industrial designer. The fact that this is the first industrial design show focused on female designers is both something to celebrate as well as something that makes you think “what took so long”? Some…
Long, drawn into the side of a cheek that was five inches of skin atop 20 inches of muscles. How many hits does it take to break a capillary in a giant of that size? It would have taken years if we hadn’t made it to the green–a lush landscape of vegetation and underground beasts…
From DIY PVC Marshmallow Shooters to LEGO Mindstorm Kits, young makers who have a passion for making things have quite the gamut of options these days. Despite the lack of wood shop and other ‘hands-on’ classes in school that their parents and grandparents might have taken back in the day, the amount of options for…
With no signs of slowing down (and currently hiring up the wazzoo), MakerBot extended their reach further into the university system last week with the opening of the very first MakerBot Innovation Center at the SUNY campus in Upstate New York. Perhaps they couldn’t have chosen a better school either: the SUNY campus in New…
Having been President and CEO of Dassault Systèmes (parent company of SolidWorks) since September of 1995, Bernard Charlès has seen better than most how much the 3D software—and software in general—landscape has changed in the last twenty years. From the transition of industrial designers increasingly adopting CAD engineering tools into their workflows to the concept…
Having been founded by aerospace engineer Greg Mark, MarkForged (or MarkForg3d) is already making waves since their debut at last week’s SolidWorks World in San Diego. Their flagship product—the Mark One 3D Printer—was on display in the Partner Pavilion and was perhaps the only product demonstration booth that had a crowd gathered day-in and day-out…
If the comments board on the recent Mechanical Conceptual SolidSmack post is any indication, SolidWorks has a lot of passionate users that want to stick with the brand…but feel uncertain about the pricey new 3D Experience structure. While SolidSmack will most certainly be the first to report back to you with any updates on the…