All of us are recovering from what was a whole lot of fun in the Big Apple at World Maker Faire. More detailed posts will be forthcoming as we digest (AKA sleep/render video) on what occured. Suffice to say, success! In the meanwhile, I thought I’d post some pictures and quotes from a gem blogpost…
Typically, the only sound that physically levitates objects is the scream from your vocal cords beating against the screen when that thin-extrude doesn’t work. Perhaps there’s another way to use soundwaves to manipulate geometry? Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) are successfully using an acoustic levitator to develop pharmaceuticals. Using the device originally developed by…
Rapid Manufacturing of bio-compatible materials is taking off in a big way. If researchers aren’t developing new ways to use a Reprap to create veins or printing prothetics beaks for Bald Eagles, they’re exploring avenues to perfect the art of making organs. Is this a harbinger for things to come? We hope so. Hey Solidworks,…
And while Australia is going big with 3D Printing, Austria is going the opposite direction. The Vienna University of Technology has developed a method for 3D Printing on a microscopic scale using lasers. If you recall they printed a tiny F1 car, complete with details right down to the steering wheels and hubs. Now they’re…
RichRap out of Gloucester, UK has been colouring his work with a new type of multicolour and multi-material extruder. 3 filaments enter – only one can leave. That sounds like an epic extruder in my book. RichRap’s extruder produce vibrant yet oversaturated coloured prints – not really the fidelity you need to make exact replicas…
After warnings from retired Engineers and seasoned VCs, the World has reached peak hype in 3D Printing. All those Kickstarter campaigns for 3D printers, all those busy CAD artists, all those blog writers who talk endlessly about it (noooo), are going to hit a brick wall. No more cool materials, no more cool designs, no…
Getting your CAD file to the physical world is often the longest mile in 3D Printed Design. Printing resolution is getting higher and the materials are getting stronger, but most models have to be manually checked to see if they’re printable. Even after careful fine-toothed inspection, things get missed and valuable time is wasted. As…
Rust never sleeps, especially in Ohio. The heart of the steel manufacturing has suffered more from the decline of the industry and the recession more than anywhere else in America, and 3D Printing has been hyped for how it could bring jobs back. It might, but the story is more complicated than what it seems.
While some are worrying about high-efficiency this and fuel-economic that, others are putting the electrons pulsing through their cognitive, übercreative brain cages to much better use creating “an open-source, 18ft wide, 4,000 pound, 6-legged hydraulic robot that you can ride.” Project Hexapod is a robotics class turned Kickstarter project that hit its initial funding goal…
Perhaps high-priced, iconic sculpture added to a scenic seaside village leaves you yearning for a trip to the untainted wilderness, but if the site of carbon fiber and steel structures erupting from the earth make you feel alive, you’ll want to see the process of how this one was created. Bart Hoedemakers captured New Zealand…
If you’ve ever made your own speaker cabinet, you probably didn’t approach the project using long strips of wood veneer and a tea cup. Maybe I’m wrong and maybe you created it using exactly the same wood craft manufacturing technique that BUNACO uses. BUNACO is Japanese brand and maker of tableware, lamps and other interior…
Logging into Shapeways last week was a bit disconcerting – almost made me think I was at the wrong website. Shapeways has completely revamped the look and feel of their site, their logo and their interface. The reason? Evolution we suppose. As Shapeways begins to offer more materials, higher quality and a better platform for its…
If you’re part of a minibus fanclub or have often thought of joining an electric minibus revolution, this new concept from design group Entastudio, may make the cut to go on all your event flyers. Oktay Türkoglu and Ramazan Kaya are the founders of the studio, heading up the five person group based out of…
The biggest question in my head for years has been this. Can you start a business with a desktop 3D printer? With a nice little Makerbot, or a RepRap and a really useful product design, can I actually be my own, cigar-sucking factory boss? In my own living room, with a bathrobe on? An intriguing…
Nervous System is a design firm that churns out mathematically generated CAD files which are then printed and sold online. They make beautiful earrings, necklaces, bracelets and home decor, the perfect gift for your nerdy girlfriend, math teacher or CAD-lover. Really anyone with a pair of eyes and a beating heart in my opinion (except…
Rumour has it that Kickstarter will be going international by the end of 2012. This is freaking awesome, as I live in the frozen reaches of Canada, and know quite a few other people stymied by the rules as well. Indiegogo is great for non-US makers and creators with a super idea and insufficient funds…
Fab-fabulous machines of fabbing people. The Fabbster was developed and manufactured by German company Sintermask, the very ones who develop a unique sinter and powder deposition technology that utilizes principles similar to a silkscreen press. What sets Fabbster apart isn’t the fact that it’s high-speed (400 mm/s) or has a incredibly high-temperature extruder (300C or…
Hungry for pounds and pounds of purple filament to feed through your printer? I know the answer to that is a pellet-melting YES. However, the cost of this filament… RIDICULOUS. Sure, 3D printers are awesome – You can make virtually anything – But the filament is expensive and there isn’t an easy way to make…
If you enjoy the plasticy smell of fresh cut PVC in the morning and iconic chair design, you’ll love the new butt hugging iteration from Kenneth Smythe. You’ve seen the asymmetric permutations of his designs before – open-source designs based on musical variation. But where those use materials that are more difficult to work with,…
¡Híjole! 3D Printed Burritos. To be honest, I thought that this project was an April Fool’s joke. Perhaps it was posted as such and I’m just now seeing it. Nope, it’s for real. Marko Manriquez has developed the Burritob0t as his graduate thesis for the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. Ready your tortillas, prime the…
There’s a place we’ve been warned about called, THE FUTURE. I’m not so sure it exists. But if it does, there are present trends that are certainly shaping it and how we experience everything from structures to shopping. Stuart Fingerhut has a firm grasp on what’s setting the pace. You’ve heard him on EngineerVsDesigner. Now,…
When bending wire around your arms and face isn’t efficient enough for your wire bending needs, call upon this machine. The DIWire Bender from Pensa is a different take to going from digital to physical.
STL files have been around for a while. It was originally developed as a bridge between CAD files and 3D Systems’ first 3D printers. It has become the standard format for 3D printing, but it’s increasingly seen as antiquated and limited. In reality, an STL file describes a shape and not much else. In addition,…
A team of scientists led by Professor Lee Cronin of the University of Glasgow have developed 3D printed “reactionware” that can make particular chemicals based solely on the geometry of the design and the chemicals within the constituent printing materials.
If you’re an iPad user soaking in the retina display rays of the latest tablet tech, you’re flipping open a cover that’s flimsy, only allows viewing at 10 degrees off a flat surface and doesn’t even stick to the magnets you’ve embedded in your abs. That’s about to change in a flippin’ big way. The…
Another step towards 3D printed electronics was taken recently – Stratasys and Optomec have been working together to develop a method whereby conductive material is deposited in a design. This has been the holy grail of 3D printing for a number of reasons.
How do you immortalize your loved one? Simple. You have them printed as a scrapyard miniature in glorious alumide or bronze. “You and Me” by Dr. Ulrich Schwanitz is a fresh Indigogo project in the beginning stages of funding. If you want to give that special person something unique, this would be it.
The universal challenges faced by Trek in creating a new generation racing bike apply to many companies today: Create products that are sturdy yet use lightweight materials, spot design defects earlier in the design phase and reduce time from sketch to physical prototype.
Besides enjoying the warmth of freshly molten plastic against their skin, plastic part designer and mold makers appreciate parts that don’t shrink unevenly or have an excessive amount of undercuts. SolidWorks has launched an addon to help part designers of the world catch and ‘predict’ issues that may come up during manufacturing with a new…
3D printers and designers have been doing some fancy footwork recently. The Smithsonian has put out a great article covering several new designs. Here’s my favourite, by Hoon Chung for the London College of Fashion.
There’s a little site called Kickstarter. It has a lot of amazing crowdfunded projects on it and, like us, you may have a mild, vein-slapping addiction to it. If so, these are two that you’ll want to check out. One has exceeded its funding by leaps and bounds. The other is just about to break…
Instructables and Objet have joined forces to give you a challenge, the “Make it Real Challenge”. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to make a nice, user-friendly Instructable of how to make a virtual object a reality.
You’ve seen the chair designs of Kenneth Smythe on SolidSmack before, but that will not be the last you’ll see. With hundreds of chair and table variations in the works, he’s elevating the visual function of sitting, above the seat and creating designs based on a musical passacaglia of furniture design floating in a narrative…
Luxury mobile phones are most often super-glam on the outside, and filled with outdated crap tech on the inside, but Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer has a new class of high-end, Andriod mobile phone and it’s sure to squeeze your eyes right out of their sockets. We take a look at the new Tag Heuer “Racer”…
He’s finally done it. You may have heard of Jarno Smeets and his Human Birdwing project before, but this time he’s not trying to fly like a bird, he has flown like a bird. Has he actually cracked the mystery of human-powered flight?
Turns out rearranging molecules sounds like the soundtrack to a blood-drenched, space-horror film. As you’ll see (and hear) in the video below, Scientist and Engineers from Stanford University and the US Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have found a way to move carbon monoxide molecules one at a time to create ‘designer electrons’…
KeyShot 3 came out a mere three months ago. Now, KeyShot 3.1 is here. It’s a mere point release later, but they’re slamming out a slew of new features and improvements with the update. Features like Environment Editing, Material Templates and Network Rendering. They’re adding supprt for 3DConnexion devices and improving the animation debuted with…
How long does it take to cook up a 3D print of a microscopic racecar? Not long at all apparently. A laser beam, some liquid resin and 4 minutes later you have a super tiny, super precise 3D print. It’s a new -printing technology using “two-photon lithography” in conjunction with new, highly-efficient photoinitiators which make…
I know star-shaped owls can be a bit nightmarish, especially the rabid ones with three eyes and wolf fangs, but this one is guaranteed not to carry you or your babies off in the night. Grant Miller of FigureBang is a toy makin’, 3D printin’ He-man fan from San Francisco, California and he’s in the…
I know. You’re like, Make it Real?? Wha!? Huh?! WHHHAAAT? I prefer to make it fake. So fake that it causes people to question if it’s really not real at all. However, for those of you who actually like to ‘Make it Real’, there’s a challenge for that and it’s being put on by the…
“This post is from our new guest blogger, JF Brandon. He works with Enrico Dini and the DShape. He likes 3D Printing, Naïve Architecture, Open Source, Mass Customization and Hockey. He lives in Vancouver, Canada.” I’ve seen a lot of videos promising a desktop 3D printer in every home, as ubiquitous as the inkjet. One…
Let’s just say one day your old, decrepit body needs a piece replaced – a hip, a skullcap, maybe a kneecap or two. Having bits of bone replaced is fairly common, but for the first time ever, an 83 year old woman has a new jaw… a custom 3D printed titanium jaw. The University of…
I’ve always had a little bit of a problem with sustainability software. You jam some criteria into it and it throws a comparison of materials, location, the impact your choices have on the environment, and a pretty report you can give to your boss or client to prove you’ve done your research. The thing is,…
If you want to see something completely mind blowingly, mind blowing feast your eyes upon RogueDZN.com. We’ve featured their Armadillo:161 Bracelet. Now, they have announced their newest precision machined men’s bracelet, the Armadillo: C6-DARKHORSE and boy, IS IT MANLY. Each of the 145 interlocking parts are individually, 9-axis machined from over 200 layers of compressed…
Moving dirt. Mixing concrete. Inspiring people. Not something you want to do with a spoon, a bucket and lots of screaming. Especially when your goal is to create entire civilizations from scratch. Typically, you would need a few dozers, a backhoe or three and a lot more money to throw at materials and manufacturing equipment.…
If you’ve ever mistakenly drank ferromagnetic fluid thinking it was coffee, you’re likely dead, or highly magnetized and sitting at In-n-Out gnawing on a burger dressed like Magneto. I am… right now actually, staring into the screen at the Kickstarter project David Markus has launched. Ferrite – Interactive Liquid Sculpture is a visual display of…
Dassault Systemes sure isn’t afraid to launch a cool, new product… then hide in the back corner next to the prosthetic leg design for their cat. Thing is, it may not actually be ready for prime-time, even though it is part of the currently available CATIA V6R2012 release. CATIA Natural Sketch was announced at ECF2011,…
Whoa buddy, 3D Systems continues their 3D print related rampage through the additive manufacturing industry gobbling up companies to compliment their forward looking plans of content-to-print domination. It seems no company is safe from having MILLIONS of dollars thrown at them, if they’ve got the “strategic fit’ 3D Systems CEO, Abe Reichental, is looking for.…
Hear that noise? No? That’s because it’s the sound of stunned silence emanating from all those who’ve been waiting and clamoring for their favorite real-time rendering program to bring the simplicity and ease of photo-rendering to their world of… animation. Well, prepare for the shock-wave that’s about to peel your keyframin’ fingers right off… Luxion…
If you haven’t seen the cranium-scorching, rendering research of Kevin Karsch, watch it, we’ll wait… Now that your brain is charred and crumbling like so much burnt popcorn, you can well understand why, after seeing this video, we had to get the low-down from Kevin himself. So… we blind folded him, spun him around, drugged…