Tag Archives: prototyping

Poppy Kickstarter Closes in on $150,000 to Turn Your iPhone into a 3D Camera

Poppy Kickstarter 3D iPhone Camera

Poppy Soon to Hit $150,000 Crowdfunding Milestone

A few weeks ago, we covered the Kickstarter campaign launch of Poppy, an innovative device that lets you capture, view and share images in 3D, using only your iPhone.

With an initial target of $40,000 in crowdfunding on Kickstarter, Poppy raced past that goal on day 1 and is now closing in on $150,000 with 11 days left in the campaign.

As is common with Kickstarter campaigns, Poppy has a set of stretch goals that only kick in if the funding campaign outperforms its target. The first stretch goal was $100,000 and the reward was the inclusion of a simple tripod screw mount for every Poppy. It was easily achieved.

The second stretch goal is $150,000, and the reward will be the release of a white Poppy, available to those who pledged $59 or more.

3D Printing Inspiration

We chatted with the Poppy founders about how 3D printing played a role in Poppy’s development. It enabled them to iterate fast and create a working prototoype that they could use in customer development.

Poppy founder Joe Heitzeberg explained, “3D printing helped us make Poppy stylish and easy to use by allowing us to iterate the design and get actual usage feedback from real users before committing to the more costly work of tooling for injection molds.”

MakerBot Founder Poppy 3D Printed Prototype

As we reported previously, if you pledge $1,200 or more on Kickstarter, you can receive one of the original 3D printed functional prototypes.

Below is a video showing how Poppy works.

3D Printing at Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona

3D Printing Gaudi Sagrada Familia

The world famous Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona, Spain was the life work of genius designer Antoni Gaudi. Construction started in 1882 and will not be completed until 2028. It is a massive structure featuring incredible towers, rich detailed facades, and complex architecture.

In the museum, one can see how Gaudi’s original designs are developed into full glory. 3D printing is one key tool workers use to prototype Gaudi’s designs at a model scale.

3D Printing Gaudi Sagrada Familia

The shop hosts two ZCorp 3D printers which can create the intricate models shown in the photo, as small as 1:2000 in size.

3D Printing Gaudi Sagrada Familia

Discharged binder solution cartridges are left on the side of the workshop.

It’s incredible to think that Gaudi designed this building without the use of these modern tools, whereas today’s designers rely on them to ensure the quality of their work.

The First 3D Printed Car Optimizes Design for Renewable Energy

KOR EcoLogic Urbee

How do you design the most efficient car on the road that can run on renewable energy? You prototype, a lot, with 3D printing.

That is what KOR EcoLogic did using Autodesk software and Stratasys’ digital manufacturing service. The car, called Urbee, gets 200 miles per gallon.

“The Urbee was designed from the ground up to be as efficient as possible, and to run on renewable energy,” said Jim Kor, president and chief technology officer of KOR EcoLogic. “From concept through rendering, Autodesk software helped us not only build an efficient and sustainable car, but also communicate our designs to a broader audience, including potential investors.”

Urbee is truly the first car to have its entire body 3D printed.

The KOR EcoLogic team began by developing a set of core principles and pinning them to their workshop wall. Among them, the Urbee was designed to use minimal energy and produce less pollution during its design, manufacturing, operation and recycling stages, while remaining affordable and visually appealing.

“Startup clean tech companies need technology enabling them to create professional, fully realized and tested designs, while benefiting from visually stunning imagery of their products,” said Robert “Buzz” Kross, senior vice president, Autodesk Manufacturing Industry Group. “KOR EcoLogic is a great example of the combined power of Digital Prototyping and sustainable design.”

The Urbee team used Autodesk Inventor software to design a 3D digital prototype of the car’s body and subject it to simulated road and wind conditions, test different body designs to minimize drag and reduce overall weight by eliminating excess parts. More than 80 percent of a product’s environmental impact can be determined during the design phase, making Inventor a critical component in establishing the Urbee’s high level of environmental responsibility. KOR EcoLogic used Autodesk Showcase 3D visualization software to create photorealistic renderings of the Urbee for marketing to potential investors, partners and the general public.

Below is a video of the Urbee on a test drive.

 

Via dexigner.

3D Printing Accelerates Development of a Race Car

Prodrive‘s 3D printing success story shows how functional prototypes and rapid tooling can significantly speed up the development of a race car.

“3D printing is an important part of our design and development process that has massively reduced our reaction time,” said Prodrive chief design engineer Paul Doe. “The technology allows us to produce new parts for the test car within hours of a problem or need being discovered.”

With 3D printing technology, the team can quickly test new ideas without the large cost of retooling production equipment. The prototypes that are “printed” are production ready, reducing time traditionally spent creating new parts and testing them sequentially. In fact, the cost of this development effort was 1/5 the size of a comparable project not using 3D printing.

Read more about this announcement here.