Tag: 3d Printing

Thingiverse member CloudJ helps make the last days of winter more fun with his DIY snowman mold. Available in two- and three-ball variants, the mold lets you make lots of tiny snowmen in minutes. As Nerd Approved pointed out, CloudJ’s snowmen look just like the ones that Bill Watterson’s Calvin loves to build (and destroy).

If you build it, he will come – and then build a LEGO version of it. So goes the quote from the classic non-existent drama Brick of Dreams. Today that “he” is Instructables member W1ll14m. The alphanumeric boy wonder recently shared his progress on a 3D printer made of LEGO Technic and Mindstorms EV3 pieces.

It may not be as cool as Iron Man’s transforming briefcase armor, but Jean-Luc Guillemette’s Case-Rap is still a cutting edge suitcase. This portable 3D printer is ready to print within seconds of unfolding. Jean-Luc based the Case-Rap on the Mendel 90, one of the many spinoffs of the RepRap 3D printer.

A few years ago, we featured fan-made 3D printed replicas of some of the buildings in SimCity 2000. You can still download and print those designs, but if you don’t have access to a 3D printer, Ittyblox are nice alternatives.

How awesome is 2015? In less than two months we got a way to unboil eggs, a backup band in a box and now curved LEGO blocks that you can print. This cancels out the hotdog in a chicken bun.

Whether through machine or user error, 3D printers turn out a lot of defective prints. ExtrusionBot wants to help personal 3D printer users get the most out of their materials with the Cruncher. It’s a desktop pellet mill that breaks down unwanted printed objects into small pieces. 

While pundits mull the Seahawks’ questionable decision making at the Super Bowl, the Internet is talking about Left Shark. One of Katy Perry’s dancers, Bryan Gaw made glaring mistakes at the halftime show performance, turning him into a meme within hours.

Last year, LEGO launched Fusion, which are LEGO sets that you build and then import virtually into simple games on your mobile device. LEGO X is the adult version of Fusion. Created by Gravity Research Club – the same group behind the 3D sketching project – LEGO X creates a 3D model of whatever you’re building while you’re building it.

Just 3 years ago the thought of using 3D printing to create buildings – even a tiny one – seemed like a pipe dream. But last year we saw a miniature castle that was entirely 3D printed.

The E-NABLE network is very cool: it uses 3D printing to make basic, low-cost prosthetics for children who are growing too quickly to qualify for regular ones. Their latest recipient is Liam Porter from Augusta, Georgia, who was given the limb by John Peterson, who built himself a 3D printer for the purposes of working with E-NABLE.

Tap into the force of Luck with Chris “muckychris” Milnes’ 3D printed geeky Budai statues, which swaps the jelly bellied deity’s head with characters from Star Wars and other sci-fi franchises. As much as I love Groot and Rocket’s two for one deal, I think Palpatine is the only one that fits seamlessly into the monk’s body.

Stevie Dee’s 3D printed Batman Arkham Origins costume isn’t as polished as the 3D printed Samus Aran costume that we saw last year, but it still looks awesome. And you can have one. Stevie made the 3D files on his own, then sent them to Tundra Designs to be printed and finished.

Back in 2011, we featured Michael Curry’s Mario Kart-inspired remote-controlled cars. He has since uploaded the improved 3D files along with the instructions and the parts list for the cars on Thingiverse. Maker Kart, here we come!

iPhone cases that look like the Sony Walkman are nothing new. Thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy, Walkman cases that look like Star-Lord’s specific Walkman model, the TPS-L2, have become quite popular. But John R. Hazzard went the extra mile for and designed one for his iPhone 6 Plus.

3D printing is all the rage right now, and I’m mildly (read: dangerously) obsessed with it. It’s an awesome tool for design and engineering, which are both things that my brain likes to latch on to.

Prosthetic legs typically go for several thousands of dollars and stick out because of their robotic appearance. Industrial Design student William Root wanted to address both of those issues with his Exo concept. It’s a prosthetic leg that takes advantage of modern 3D modeling and printing technology.