Yesterday, Autodesk gained the upper hand in the CAD industry by now being able to say, “Here’s how to bake a helicopter cake and a paper catapult with which to launch it into the air.” Autodesk has acquired DIY project site and passionate user community Instructables in an all out effort to seal their takeover…

Metrix Create: Space – a collective of evil geniuses in Seattle Washington – recently posted their first results out of their current project, Big Robot. It’s an old CNC machine repurposed to carry a scaled up version of the plastic extruder from the RepRap open source 3D printer project. Aside from being built from mostly…

Take a change of pace with me and see a completely different side of manufacturing. A side where designers don’t worry about being first to market or appealing to the largest consumer base possible. I’m talking about a side where products are produced specifically for individuals who appreciate the novelty and the art of the…

3D Systems is on a grappling spree of sorts, eating up 3D print related companies and leaving a new, quite cuby, 3-dimensional logo in their wake. Then, they started in on software companies, scooping up translation and conversion software developer Sycode. The latest, announced earlier this morning, is the news that 3D Systems has acquired…

Does the idea of a 6 foot long, 16 inch wide robotic worm crawling beneath your epidermis frighten you? Not to worry because Dr. Jordan Boyle, post doctoral fellow at the University of Leeds, is working on making it smaller. His focus is also on creating a robot that can manage it’s way through small…

Yes. I did just tell you last week to go fund ShapeOko on Kickstarter. But some of you looked at it and thought that you needed an already proven design, and some input on new features. Man, you’re picky… but you’re also in luck! DIYLILCNC is just the machine for you and for 40 or…

Ever built a CNC machine? I have. You never, ever hit your budget. Usually it’s because you don’t count on shipping costs or having to deal with sourcing hardware/parts from many different distributors. If you’re trying to recreate a project from instructables, you obviously missed the part where the author failed to mention he spent years…

Who feels like printing some 3D? Oh yeah! But don’t rub it on yourself. It chafes like you wouldn’t believe and there has yet to be any partnership to produce a 3D anti-chafing cream. (I would pay good money for this.) There has, however, been a(nother) partnership to print 3D direct from a website where…

Lather that sun tan oil on. Summer is here and you look FABULOUS. But don’t worry about going to the mall to find that unique two-piece. They don’t do the 3D printing thing and oh, what a shame, because the latest fabric-free, platastic feat is bridging swimwear and SLS. Designed by Jenna Fizel and Mary…

Ponoko, the New Zealand based purveyor of laser cutting services has been rolling out additional services this year under the name Personal Factory. In the past, they’ve added services such as 3D printing and have provided access to a huge catalog of electronics components. Now, they’re announced one more way to butcher that beautiful, flat-packed…

Running out of things to give your mother for her birthday/Christmas/Mother’s Day? (hint: you’re late on that last one.) Shapeways, an online 3D printing company which already has one of the largest materials offerings on the net, has introduced Glazed Ceramics 3D printing. One of their trumpeted examples is a coffee mug, so it will…

Titanium fingertips. A chin shield. Elbow spikes. An inlay across the bridge of your nose to hold lasers manipulated by your eye. Yes, you’ve dreamt about such things in the waning hours of the morning. Now you can design them and have them made. Max Barry’s book Machine Man, a real-time serial about a man…

You know when you’re holding a baby goat, and your thinkin’, I can hold that spoon and that bag of chips… and that chair… and that pile of cream cheese balls… and that armadillo dressed like a Spanish conquistador. Yeah, I can hold ALL THAT. Well, just imagine if a simple product which sat on…

You may have guessed it would happen. You may have seen a small group of children exiting a school yard in a zombie-like state chanting, “FEED US, FEED US EASY TO USE 3D SOFTWARE.” No doubt to create and manufacture some killer Barbie/Truck mods. Same for the maker crowd. Is there any 3D software created…

Maybe you’re walking down the street. The middle of the street. You can, because they are empty while people charge their electric cars. Suddenly… WHAM! Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go rings in your ears as you lift your body off the pavement. You’ve just been hit by an Urbee. “I’ve just been hit by…

You like to ride. That’s what it’s about. Not skimming around on a pretty set of purple powder coated tubes, with matching water bottle, helmet and Lycra bottoms. The tougher, the better and if it can handle blood spatters from shin gashes, dehydration vomits and a 30 foot fall… all the better. Sean Walling know…

There are a lot of secrets in the world of design – materials, processes, handshakes and very few know how many raccoons it takes to gnaw a smooth continuous surface out of a chunk of clay. Perhaps that’s changing and perhaps it’s beginning with knowing a little more about the secret process behind modern concept…

If you ever go ridding a horse bareback through plate glass windows, you may often wonder how to reduce the amount of scarring by attaching a thin acrylic shield around yourself and the horse. I propose Ponoko as the single best resource for creating such a shield. However, you don’t want children attempting to try…

What defines insanity? Typically, I’d say the amount of plastic beads someone can stick in their mouth before drooling all over the expanding foam they’ve stuffed in their shirt. In this case, however, I’d say it’s the amount of plastic blocks one can form into a puzzle. Oskar van Deventer is the man making us…

I know.You were probably hoping to see my improvisational flute playing skills in this post. We’ll do that later when you have quick access to a bucket and some earplugs. Today, we’re looking at something that will go down as a turning point in 3D printing history, but not only 3D printing history… all those…

I know, you may be 5 layers of neon-green acrylic away from overdosing on your custom design addiction. Too bad, it’s about to get 1,000x worse. Ponoko and CloudFab have teamed up to combine the goodness of 2D laser-cut design and the multi-dimensionality of 3D printing to bring you… Personal Factory 4. This is probably…

Glass vases, metal vases, vases made of wood, vases made of bone, vases fashioned out of the screams of the undead… even though you hoard all these types of vases, there’s probably one you don’t have yet. A 3D printed vase created from the generative form of liquid entering an empty vessel. Sounds poetic doesn’t…

Tighten your corsets folks. Actually, you can loosen them, because this design will make your eyes pop no matter how you’re compressing your innards. Last May we featured an iPad Canvas Wrap concept designed by Jeff Bare. Well, the design has come full-circle and the result is amazing. We’ve just uncovered images and video from…

I enjoy a good 3D print as much the next stark-raving mad 3D print fan, but there’s something cool about being able to upload a file to a faraway land via a slick interface, pay a fairly high price and get a freshly fabricated 3D print delivered to your front door. One of the latest…

You lika to burn tha meatballs eh? He lika to burn tha meatballs! OH, and the noodles!? and the TABLE!!? and the ULTEM 9085!!!?!?!? Bontà mia! Yes folks, and burn it will, all of it. Even the 3D print material that passes FAR 25.853 flammability requirements for aircraft with occupants. It’s ULTEM 9085, the up…

You know what’s cooler than flesh-eating robots? Nothing. That’s the worse it can get. However, printing out robots and robot parts falls into a whole other class of cool which will distract you from any impending robot doom. I’ve never thought about using Shapeways to print different variations of mechanical creatures and their implements of…

Carve it. Shape it. Cut it. Smooth it. Knick it. Clip it. Daft Punk Helmet. Yeah, you know what’s good for you. 3 minutes of prop building madness from Volpin Props. The prop? The helmet of electronic, supersonic duo supremo, Daft Punk. The process took all of 17 months… yeeeeeah. So ya gotta think, especially…

You remember that time you were yelled at by that German guy for putting putting peanut butter in the print mechanism? Yeah, that was hilarious. He was like, “SLA!! Schweinhund!! nicht meine Erdnussbutter!!!” and you were like, “wha?” while spraying a goat down with a water hose. I’ll never forget that. It’s sad however that…

Put on that shiny, gold vest that says “SUPREME MASTER of COLOR” across the back, because you’re about to get busy pitching pasty ABS prints and adding some color to your fab process. Now that you have Shapeways plugin for SolidWorks, Duann at Shapeways has put up a quick tutorial to show you how to…

What’s better than exporting out an .STL file and uploading your precious 3D geometry to be printed? Not exporting an .STL, that’s what. Today Shapeways releases their 3D print add-in for SolidWorks which allows you direct upload capability from the SolidWorks user interface. There are other 3D print add-ins for SolidWorks but none with the…

Before you reach in that bucket and grab a week-old shard of melted plastic to gnaw on for a little iPad case-makin’ inspiration, look at what the necessity for flatness and reduced material usage has resulted in. Like many of you, Jeff Bare, of jbare designs, knew he would be getting an iPad the first…

Out of all the things I’ve wanted to line my desk, hallway, car dash and gold-plated cage of wild hogs with, brightly colored 3D printed pigs is 4th on the list. Shapeways has now made that easier. Just today, Shapeways launches Color it! making it possible for you or your little ones to color a…

Oh yeah, you know you’ve gone too far when you’ve got little Johnny sprayin’ cheese spread out his nose to form building for your moon-based train station display. Those hospital trips are about to drop significantly and your family can rest their weary nostrils. Fab@home Model 2 is here. Fab@Home is a project started by…

I don’t know if I’d really call it ‘the Biggest’ 3D print. I’d be more likely to call it the BIGGESTEST Freeform Architecture 3D Print ever excreted by the pucker of a print head. You remember Enrico Dini, right? The fine Italian gent with a passion for print? He’s working on his next project, a…

“Finally!” you think, “A cheap 3D printer I don’t have to build myself.” Yes, you’re probably already doing the calculations in your head. For a mere $3.5 million US dollars you can buy 1,000 of these suckers and build a tower of 3D printing power the likes no one hAS EVER SEEN!! muwwahhHAHA!! All you…

I’m willing to bet a pile of spalling brick that most of you don’t live in a house or work in a building that’s been printed by a 3D printer. No? It seems ludicrous that a large structure could be printed layer-by-layer with a rock-like resin – floor, walls, ceiling, tubes, stairs and roof. But…

OOOOOhhhhh, it is ON. SolidSmack has been challenged… and when I say challenged, I mean we are pickin’ fights with anything or anyone. Mr. Joseph ‘Mass Customization’ Flaherty over at Replicator Blog recently wrote about Why 3D Printers Won’t Go Mainstream. That’s just yelling to have an opposing view thrown at it. So that’s what…