Tag Archives: Indiegogo
MIT Team Uses 3D Printing to Invent the Smarter Baby Spoon
A pair of MIT grads are looking to reinvent the baby spoon, and they are using 3D printing to perfect their design.
The product is called Spuni, and it is inspired by how babies eat. Why are today’s infant spoons just shrunk down versions of adult spoons? Nothing is adapted to the ergonomic needs of a child.
The Spuni team set off to create the perfect design, first creating prototypes in wood and later employing 3D printing to refine the shape and fabricate spoons that they could test on real babies.
Now the team is ready to scale up manufacturing for fulfillment to customers in April 2013. To do so, Spuni is looking to raise $35,000 on Indiegogo.
Here’s the opening pitch from the team’s Indiegogo page:
There comes a point in a baby’s life when he or she starts eating solid food. For parents, this means more cleaning. For a baby, a face full of food that needs to be wiped. This eating is messy. One reason? Most baby spoons are smaller versions of adult spoons, and they are not ergonomically engineered to help a baby transition to solids.
Spuni is not just a small spoon. Spuni’s unique “tulip” profile is designed to trigger the instinctive latching reaction that babies develop during breast and bottle feeding. It allows a baby to suck food off the spoon with less spillover, making each meal a more pleasurable experience for all.
Although the original prototypes were created using 3D printing, the Spuni team expects to manufacture spoons that are in accordance with best practices for baby products.
The mass produced spoons will be made through a three-step injection-mold process. The rigid inner structure is made from colored Thermoplastic Elastomer (TPE) with a softer over-molded transparent TPE outer material. These materials are dishwasher safe, non-toxic and Phthalate (BPA & BPS) and PVC free. We believe that Spuni will offer the best spoon for babies when it comes to contemporary material selection, safety and tactile experience.
And watch their full video here:
Video: Burning Man Team Offers 3D Prints of Burners in the Desert
Global non-profit ReAllocate is putting 3D printing on center stage at this year’s Burning Man.
Their pitch is this:
- Go to their camp and get 3D scanned; they will start 3D printing a statue in your likeness
- Leave their camp with a GPS transponder
- A drone will come find you when your 3D print is ready and deliver it to you
Burning man statue photo by Tanais Fox used under Creative Commons license.
Anarkik3D Seeks Crowdfunding to Launch 3D Printing Software for Artists
We’ve featured crowdfunding proposals in the past, but this one is truly original. Anarkik3D is a software-hardware combination that empowers artists to digitally design the natural way: by hand.
Ann Marie Shillito, CEO and Founder of the Edinburgh-based startup, narrates the video on IndieGoGo. The visuals are fantastic. Be sure to watch the video below.
Here are the key pitch points:
- Funding target: £120,000 by June 27.
- Software: Similar to TinkerCAD, Sketchup, and 123D, the Anarkik 3D Design studio can be used to create designs that can be manufactured using 3D printing.
- Hardware: Anarkik 3D Design (formerly Cloud9) employs a haptic device, which is like a 3D mouse with force feedback. This lets a designer manipulate the software as if she is truly working with physical material. ”As an artist and designer, it’s really important to have touch as sensory feedback in addition to sight. Cloud9 allows you to feel the object change in more than one dimension.” – Farah Bandookwala, 3D Artist
- Objectives: Cloud9 is already usable software. This funding goal will be used to fix the bugs, add more features, hire new programmers, and expand internationally.
Visit their crowdfunding page on IndieGoGo for details on their perks to contributors. Good luck to Anarkik3D!
