Tag Archives: design

Shapeways Celebrates Pi Day with 3D Printed Mathematical Art

3D printing marketplace Shapeways celebrated “Pi day”, March 14 or 3-14, by showcasing a collection of 3D printed mathematical art on their homepage.

There is the Pi Pendant for $64.75 by somersault18:24, the Escher Knot for $14.78 by ShapeKays, and the Rubenstein’s Cactus for $40.21 by henryseg, among many other designs inspired by mathematics.

Shapeways Pi Day Collection

Do you have a math teacher or math student in your life? Maybe you should head over to Shapeways and pick up one of these incredible and elegant designs.

Shapeways Pi Pendant

Vote for the Best Designs in MyMiniFactory 3D Printing Christmas Contest

MyMiniFactory.com, a platform for free 3D printable designs, is hosting its second design contest. The winner will receive a Ultimaker 1 3D printer worth £1,690.

Looking to tap into this talented base, My Mini Factory has launched a Christmas Design Contest, calling on the worldwide community of 3D designers to upload their designs.

Now that contest is open to voting! Click here to go see the designs and make your vote.

My Mini Factory 3D Printing Contest Voting

Win an Ultimaker in MyMiniFactory 3D Printing Christmas Design Contest

iMakr Has Launched Its Second Design Contest for My Mini Factory as it Ramps Up Its Design Base

MyMiniFactory.com, a platform for free 3D printable designs, is hosting its second design contest. The winner will receive a Ultimaker 1 3D printer worth £1,690.

Launched in June 2013, My Mini Factory features a large range of free 3D printable objects that are original and unique, and all designs are test printed by the My Mini Factory team on affordable 3D Printers to ensure their quality.

“MyMiniFactory.com is the world’s 2nd largest platform of 3D printable files,” said Romain Kidd, Chief Marketing Officer, iMakr.com. “Downloads come from around the world. The designer base – both in-house and external – is in the several hundred, and very multinational as well.”

Looking to tap into this talented base, My Mini Factory has launched a Christmas Design Contest, calling on the worldwide community of 3D designers to upload their designs. Beautiful and functional printable objects will then be exposed to the large audience of enthusiasts who visit MyMiniFactory.com, and designers will can soon start earning money from downloads of their objects.

MyMiniFactory Design Contest

This is the site’s second design competition. We spoke with Romain Kidd, CMO iMakr.com about the results of the first contest.

“The Autumn contest was very successful,” Kidd told us in an interview. “We had close to 50 successful entrants. XYZ workshop (Australia) won first place with their ‘Micro Planter Chess Set‘, and the first place runner up was Billy Sides (USA) with his ‘Minion Chess Set‘. We are targeting more entrants this Christmas and the same quality of designs.”

The Autumn contest winner received an UP! Mini 3D Printer.

Micro Planter Chess Set MyMiniFactory

MyMiniFactory.com is owned by UK-based iMakr.VC, the same group that owns iMakr, the world’s largest 3D printing store. As a 3D printing value added re-seller, iMakr is solving the problem of “what should I 3D print?” with MyMiniFactory.com, similar to the relationship between MakerBot and Thingiverse.com.

Related: Video: iMakr 3D Printing Store Grand Opening in London

Christmas Design Contest Details

To enter the Christmas design contest applicants need to 3D model and upload a design to either (or both) of the submission design categories -

  • Category 1 -  a 3D printable decorative object with an ‘endangered species’ theme
  • Category 2 – a 3D printable object for use during the seasonal festivities / with a seasonal theme

My Mini Factory will be accepting entries until November 20, after which entries will be posted on the website for a 3 week voting period.

The competition is open to applicants worldwide, they simply register with My Mini Factory and submit an entry through the upload system.

All the entries will be 3D printed by the company to assess their printably and functionality. If it successfully passes this print test it will be entered into the contest. Designers will be provided with feedback if there are any problems with their file/design.

During the voting period each entry will have it’s own personal page to receive downloads from.

The design with the most downloads will be the grand prize winner, and will receive an Ultimaker 1 3D printer worth £1,690 in time for Christmas!

3D Printing Makes Online Marketplace Etsy Change Its Handmade Policy

Founded in 2005, online marketplace Etsy has become a popular destination for handmade goods. From art to clothing to jewelry to toys, Etsy sellers create it all, and many sellers are quite sensitive about the definition of handmade.

As Etsy has scaled its business to now hosting over 18 million items for sale and attracting more than 60 million visitors per month, the company has had to consider how it can support sellers who are also achieving scale. And in that vein, Etsy has made a dramatic change to its policy about how goods are sourced.

No longer are items required to be handmade, but instead must have authorship with the seller. 3D printing is one of the factors influencing this decision.

“We have jewelers, for example, on Etsy who are using 3D printing to make parts for their jewelry. Those are hand-made, I think in spirit, even though they are designed on a computer and printed on a 3D printer,” said Chad Dickerson, CEO of Etsy, in an interview with NPR.

In fact, when you search Etsy for 3D printed goods, you find quite a selection. Approximately 750 items are listed in a 3D printing market on Etsy at this time.

Etsy 3D Printing

While artisans who specialize in handmade goods are not happy with Etsy’s policy change, it will be interesting to watch the diversity of new items that are listed on Etsy as a result of the company embracing 3D printing.

Perhaps Etsy will even start to compete with Shapeways and other 3D printing marketplaces as it finds profits and popularity in 3D printed goods.

Spooky Designs You Can 3D Print for Halloween from Shapeways

A few days ago, MakerBot released glow-in-the-dark filament, so you can 3D print ghosts and goblins that will be great additions to your Halloween decorations.

For more Halloween inspiration, check out these items available on 3D printing marketplace Shapeways.

First, there’s a Ninja Ghost Lightclip for your iPhone created by Dinos Costanti. You attach the Lightclip to your iPhone and turn on a flashlight app to see the ninja ghost light up. $15 and up.

We profiled this designer back in May. Read our full interview at the link below.

Link: 3D Printed Lightclip Lets You Signal Batman With Your iPhone and More

3D Printed Lightclip Ninja Ghost

Next up, we have 3D Printed Devil Horns that you can wear on your head, created by Trish Dobson.

This set of 3″ horns also double as two talons! The lightweight white, strong and flexible material allows this model to be painted in the color of your choice. Each horn/talon has a 1/4″ slot to allow fabric or elastic to be inserted depending on usage. The pair displayed were finished with a high quality artists spray paint. $30 and up.

3D Printed Devil Horns

Next, we have a Shot Glass Crawler by Christopher Cordingley, for the adult beverages of choice on Halloween. $55 and up.

For those going to Halloween costume parties, there is the FireFlight Party Mask by maskadelic, which has long, stunning radial flames or leaves emanating from they eyes and radial accents around the eyes. Also, FireFlight has a decorative third eye accent, a great way to incorporate a bindi with it. A strong, nature inspired design FireFlight is a sure fire way to draw attention to ones facial features. $20 and up.

Fireflight Party Mask

And finally, again for costume parties, women will enjoy this Lotus Top by ThreeForm. The Lotus top is a graceful form that embraces the upper body, accentuating the shoulders and clavicles. It’s name comes from its unique design that blooms at the center opening, allowing the wearer to put her head through and rest it comfortably on the neck and shoulders. A perfect fit requires a 3D body scan; contact the designer for more information. $686 and up.

Lotus Top

Order your designs now to get them in time for Halloween!