Shocking and amazing. Creating something on the iPad, instead of absorbing the limitless digital content, browsing design variations instead of movie options, sending in an order of that design to be printed instead of sending in orders for a large deep-pan pizza. The iRing3D iPad app has done it. It’s all simple and quite basic…
Are 3D Printers a disruptive technology? Are you kidding me? Look at the image above. That person, or that person’s arm, is obviously being sucked into the filament carriage to be used in the construction of extruded parts. Totally disruptive. On the flip side, that’s one more substance we can add to the growing list…
I once CNC’d a foam shelter for a family of marsupials, except they ended up eating it, then attacking the neighbor family. It could have been worse, but I certainly wish I had come across Zomadic’s zensational (HA!) Zome structures before then – perhaps the wee creatures would have been happier. The Zome is a…
It just makes sense. Take some photos of a thing, upload them, 3D print that sucka. My choice? Photos of my fist hitting my face, repeatedly. Unfortunately, motion capture and ruptured blood vessels can not be properly translated into seamless point cloud data as of yet. Nonetheless, hypr3D is putting 3D prints where your 2D…
It’s been just over four years since Digital Reality, Inc. made a rumbling about, what was at that time, the first web-based 3D customization to appear. Of course since then, countless online customization sites for every sort or 3D digital design has been established. Now, Digital Reality is back, with a new plan and a…
There are just not enough opportunities in the world, the stand silently in a crowded room with a mask of your face… over your face. Amirite? Slap another one on the back of your head, a couple, in your arms, swaddled in blankets and you’ve got all sort of creepiness going on. The best thing?…
The lonliness that consumes you when the CNC operators talk shop is all about to end. You may not know how to bolt a billet of aluminum into a chunk without removing half your arm skin, but you can download a program with less trauma and bring a CHUCKle to a machinists face. A fresh…
Disclaimer: The following information is for entertainment purposes only. SolidSmack.com, its owner, authors and/or subsidiaries are in no way responsible for any reprehensibly idiotic or unlawful behavior exercised on the part of anyone other than their ridiculously good looking and civic duty minded selves. One has to appreciate the ingenuity displayed by a recent gang…
I warn you. Your life is about to become twice as easy, twice as wonderful and there is but one reason. The Hair Brush Fruit Bowl. What wonder is this? Endless possibility to not only display your fruit in all of it’s succulent glory but also look good doing it. I know, two thoughts… Where…
There’s something big happening. Bigger than the dirt clods you use to throw at your friends when you were little. That’s all you had to play with… and you loved it. Pulling dirt from the ground and chucking it through the air was the start of something. Now, the kids who use to do that,…
Cell Cycle Ring via Ponoko With Maker Faire last week and 3D printing buzzing the skin off the ever-loving lips of everyone talking about it, there’s news galore to satiate those in dire need of a 3d print news fix. Really, what would you do if you didn’t know that researchers had found a way…
The SUN. It’s powerful, and loves to spend afternoons, in the sun (HA!), creating 3D printed trinkets with it’s own energy. Of course, it didn’t know about this until Mark Fuller, aka ‘RobotGuy’, came along with a solar panel cart, a Reprap Mendel printer and a convincing argument about ‘printing in space.’ Take a look…
If beautifully ornate, 3D Printed skulls scare you, turn away, TURN AWAY NOW! You’ve been warned. If you listen to the EvD podcast, you know I have a Kickstarter addiction (hey, the first step to healing is admitting.) It’s exactly because of incredibly cool ideas like Crania Anatomica Filigre by Joshua Harker that are changing…
You’ll need more than a forklift to get your jaw off the floor once you find out the details of the upcoming Apocalypse. Yes, it involves robots. OBVIOUSLY. Yes, it involves sharp cutting tools. LESS OBVIOUS, but… yeah. And yes, it even involves 3D CAD…and bikes, and… Go NOW!
Why there’s nothing I quite like more than buttoning up the finest faux suede longcoat, donning my tophat and printing colorful componentry into the wee hours of the morning. There’s just something enjoyable about it that frightens people slightly. Part of that may be the amazing color assortment of plastic filament I have wrapped around…
A quick note to all you digital dreamers. Until September 22nd, anything ordered from Ponoko out of cardboard or card will only cost your laser time + shipping, making it a little cheaper to try out the geometry of that backscratcher/fruit bowl you’ve been cooking up in Solidworks before you commit to plywood. Both the…
You know that burning sensation, the one where you dump crunchy granules of fertilizer all over yourself after the spreader explodes? Yeah, that one. What to do? You’re stuck because you want to finish feeding the nitrogen-depleted grass blades, but can’t. Your afternoon plans have been foiled yet again. Well, there’s no better time to…
Every once in a while, something so cool comes along that it makes you stop whittling that sopping wet piece of MDF and stab the jack knife right in your leg meat. This is one of those things. Today, FurnLab has launched their Open Source CNC project on Kickstarter. Headed up by Jeffrey Matthias, they’re…
Why mess with printing petroleum-based plastic when there are whole deserts full of sand? Markus Kayser’s Solar Sinter Project converted a hot dog cart constructed a 3D printer that uses a giant Fresnel lens to sinter sand into 3D glass objects. Done as part of his MA studies at the Royal College of Art. There…
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…
