Motorola Mobility, a Google company, is building a 3D printed modular phone, and has partnered with 3D Systems for commercial fulfillment. More »
The Captured Dimensions pop-up studio was located in the Smithsonian Castle and featured approximately 80 digital cameras all connected to 3D software. More »
Microsoft expanded their support for 3D printing by launching a Windows 8 app called 3D Builder. It includes a library of objects you can edit and 3D print. More »
3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) announced the availability of the Sense 3D scanner, the first 3D scanner designed for the consumer and optimized for 3D printing. More »
With rumors circling that 3D Systems will be purchased by IBM, the stock soars. We look at why IBM might be interested in the 3D printing giant. More »
Yearly Archives: 2012
Fab Lab of the Week: Fayetteville Free Library in New York
This week’s featured Fab Lab is the Fayetteville Free Library in upstate New York, which recently received $250,000 from the New York State Library Construction Grant to build out its facility. Senator Dave Valesky announced the funding at the library. Syracuse.com covered this announcement:
The lab and center will provide the community with access to technologies that are not currently available to the general public, and also will provide an “incubator” for individuals and small businesses.
Entrepreneurs will be able to work together, find resources to help develop ideas and get professional assistance.
A Fab Lab is a collection of machines linked by software that allows users to make things. In Fayetteville’s Fab Lab, it means using something called a Makerbot, or 3D printer that fits on a desktop.
Fayetteville Free Library’s website describes the motivation of the center:
The Fayetteville Free Library is excited to announce the addition of a new public service—the FFL Fab Lab. What exactly is a fab lab? According to Neil Gershenfeld, the Director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms and author of Fab: the Coming Revolution on Your Desktop-From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication, a fab lab is “a collection of commercially available machines and parts linked by software and processes developed formaking things (Gershenfeld, 12).” At the foundation of the FFL’s Fab Lab will be a MakerBot Thing-o-Matic 3D printer, made available to the library through a generous donation from Express Computer Services.
Via Syracuse.com.
MakieLab Launches Personalized Doll Collection Via 3D Printing
Britain-based startup MakieLab is looking to disrupt the toy industry by letting customers design and 3D print their own doll. CEO Alice Taylor has been at this mission for over a decade, as she explained in an interview with Wired:
Taylor has been experimenting with the idea of dolls that can talk to the web for some time. In early 2000, she set up stortroopers.com, which allowed users to build Creative Commons-licensed avatars on the web. A decade later, while in the basement of the NYC Toy Fair looking at digital toy avatars that were physically and commercially separated from the “real” dolls on the floor above, she had a brainwave. “I was aware of 3D printing anyway, and wondered whether you could build an avatar-maker that could automatically output a toy and I also wondered whether that toy could then affect the digital world it had come from, [to create] an infinite loop of play.”
What are Makies?
From the MakieLab website:
MAKIES are 10″ gosh-darn poseable action dolls with faces and features designed by YOU.
You get to choose what the face looks like: the eyes, nose, jaw, smile, the hair, the clothes and the hands and feet too. Once you’ve finished creating, we manufacture your exact figure for you, dress it with the clothes you’ve chosen, add the hair and eyes you’ve chosen, and put it in a beautifully recycleable cardboard tube to be sent directly to you.
According to Wired, the dolls are not ready for children yet, but MakieLab expects to complete the necessary safety testing to expand the market.
We’re also excited to see MakieLab embracing open innovation through Creative Commons.
Digital MAKIES are about to be CC-licensed: we’ll post the license details as soon as we can (backlog of things to do …!)
Alice Taylor photo by NEXT Berlin used under Creative Commons license.
Father’s Day Gifts for Dad: Shapeways Friday Finds
3D printing marketplace Shapeways featured some fun Father’s Day gifts in its weekly Friday Finds blog series.
Death’s Head Hawkmoth Skeleton
The Wrap – cable winder for Euro iPhone charger
TriStand – iPhone Case with 3 Built In Stands
See more at Shapeways blog.
UP! 3D Printer in Action: Compact Desktop Printer from China [Video]
The UP! 3D printer is a compact desktop printer, 14″ tall by 10″ wide from Beijing, China, capable of printing 3D objects & 3D parts directly on your desktop, from your computer, using industrial strength ABS plastic.
From the UP! website:
Starting with an industry-standard 3D file (.STL format), the UP! includes it’s own software that allows you to import your 3D digital creations and then prepares them for printing as “real” objects that you can touch and hold in your hand.
Create your designs & parts in your favorite 3D CAD programs such as Solidworks, Autodesk Inventor, or TinkerCAD. Scan existing object using a 3d scanner and then save them to .STL or download shared models directly from the web.
Any .STL file can be imported into the UP! Software environment and once in, you can, scale, rotate & position your model then prepare it for printing 2 plastic, super strong ABS plastic that is! on the incredible UP! 3D Printer from PP3DP. Never has a technology been so fascinating. Watch as your digital creations are built up, layer by layer right before your very eyes.
Spend your time CREATING rather than calibrating & MAKING instead of maintaining. The UP! is ready to print, 15 minutes out of the box with no major assembly required. The UP! is 3D printing for the masses! Durable, affordable, portable & precise, the UP! is a dream machine and is built for making!
Here is a video of the UP! 3D printer in action:
Cheaper, Faster, Smaller 3D Printer: ORD BOT
In the world of $20,000 3D printers like the most recent professional desktop printer from Objet and the $1,700+ MakerBot Replicator, is there an alternative?
Yes. Discovered at Maker Faire Bay Area 2012: the ORD BOT, a 3D printer that is cheaper, faster, and smaller than the competition.
PC World’s Geek Tech blog featured the ORD BOT:
The ORD BOT is a simple 3D printer platform kit that uses an extruder to “print” 3D objects, just like the Cube or the MakerBot. However, unlike the MakerBot, the ORD BOT can only print using one color at a time (for now, anyway). But what it lacks in color it gains in speed: Its print speeds exceed 400mm per second and can reach up to a whopping 1 meter per second. This is considerably faster than the MakerBot’s output speed of 33mm per second. The ORD BOT comes with two different print areas with the largest, called the Hadron, being about 200 square milimeters.
Now the ORD BOT isn’t for just anyone–it’s made with serious makers and DIYers in mind. This platform kit is just that–a platform: You have to provide your own electronics and build the whole thing from scratch (this does make it highly customizable and flexible), but according to a spokesperson at the ORD BOT booth you can order one with the electronics included for about another $200.
There is also a wiki with various recommendations on electronics to use, as well as detailed specs and CAD files pertaining to the platform. The platform will cost you $290 for the smallest one, called the Quantum, and $400 for the Hadron–the platform plus necessary electronics is still several hundreds dollars cheaper than other commercial 3D printers out there.
Right now there are over 120 ORD BOT users, and you can get your own over at Inventables if they get enough pre-orders for another batch by May 31st. Inventables is selling the Hadron and it comes with stepper motors, you provide the rest.
Via PC World.
