It Will Be Awesome if They Don't Screw it Up: 3D Printing.
The Free Universal Construction Kit. The Melonia Shoe: A world's first? Wearable 3D printed footwear. Posted by Sam Dunne | 21 Feb 2010 | Comments (10) Students of Stockholm's two most prestigious design schools have collaborated to produce these awe-inspiring, full-wearable shoes, 3D printed in polyamid. Naim Josefi and Souzan Youssouf, of Beckmans & Konstfack respectively, designed and modelled the shoes for Selective Laser Sintering (the one with all the powder and the lasers) and produced five pairs for Naim's "Melonia" collection, shown during Stockholm Fashion Show earlier this month. The concept for the shoes call for further exploration in ever-developing rapid prototyping processes. The pair envisage a world in which we could produce and recycle such objects in a closed loop.
Photo above by "Sonny" - fantastic photos of the shoes, the show and much more on his website here. Naim's homepage is also well worth a look for fashion lovers. The CandyFab 6000. Today we are relaunching the CandyFab Project with a new logo and a new wiki site, wiki.candyfab.org. But more importantly, we are unveiling this new machine, the CandyFab 6000: It’s a brand new CandyFab– still in beta.
A clean break, designed from the ground up with almost no parts in common with the original, the CandyFab 4000. All new mechanics. Here’s one of the first objects that we fabbed on the CandyFab 6000: a drilled sphere, about two inches in diameter and layer thickness of 1/15 inch. The machine is designed so that it can be made from scratch– i.e., without dumpster diving for old HP pen plotters. The new modular electronics control platform is called Zuccherino– that’s italian for “Sugar cube.”
It’s an expandable system for all kinds of motion control projects, and we’ll be making kit versions of all of the Zuccherino boards later this summer. We’ve also got new cross platform control software — called CandyFabulous underway, and it’s looking sweet. And… oh can it fab sugar. Lab Creates 3D Glass Printing Process. Process is a modern take on an ancient glass making process 3D printing is an interesting technology which allows engineers and designers to get a 3D object from a digital design that can be viewed in the real world.
Artists also use 3D printing to make art that is designed digitally. A team of engineers and artists working at the University of Washington's Solheim Rapid Manufacturing Laboratory has developed a new method of using conventional 3D printers to create glass objects. A 3D printer typically uses a layer of powder that is activated by an ink jet printer that sprays a binding material at the exact location it is needed. The reaction binder adheres to the powdered and creates the object. The problem with making glass parts in this method is that the reaction binder doesn't quickly absorb into the glass powder and the 3D objects printed in the glass medium end up with a gelatinous consistency. The Free Universal Construction Kit. Ever wanted to connect your Legos and Tinkertoys together? Now you can — and much more. Announcing the Free Universal Construction Kit: a set of adapters for complete interoperability between 10 popular construction toys.
Fig. 1. The Free Universal Construction Kit. Overview Video by Riley Harmon for F.A.T. F.A.T. The Free Universal Construction Kit offers adapters between Lego, Duplo, Fischertechnik, Gears! Motivation Our kids are already doing it! Opening doors to new creative worlds is one major reason we created the Free Universal Construction Kit. The Kit offers a “best of all worlds” approach to play and learning that combines the advantages of each toy system.
Finally, in producing the Free Universal Construction Kit, we hope to demonstrate a model of reverse engineering as a civic activity: a creative process in which anyone can develop the necessary pieces to bridge the limitations presented by mass-produced commercial artifacts. Download Figure 2. We (F.A.T. Implementation.