Food

Great Ted talk by Kjeld van Bommel, a world referent in 3d printed food. One of the points he made about how 3D printed food is a great way to leverage lab-made meat struck me as particularly interesting. Lab-made meat is the only way we are possibly going to be able sustain ourselves in the future, but I will admit it may not sound so appetizing to everyone. But in combining the algae with 3D printers, we can make our food prettier than ever!

Look what I did!

I didn't quite finish sizing the lever for my Stein, but I was in the lab early this morning and decided to print something from the Thingiverse.

It's a minion! I was happily surprised by the resolution of the print, and it only cost like a dollar to print. In other words: lots of cheap (yet highly personal) christmas presents!

3D scanning with Xbox Kinect!?

http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2013/05/02/basic-introduction-to-using-a-kinect-for-3d-scanning-3dthursday/

I'll be looking into this. Finally I might have some use for this god awful thing.

First Original 3D Print!

I printed the first prototype of the accessory today! It went a lot better than I expected. It printed quicker than I expected, it was cheaper than I expected, and best of all, the handle fit like a glove to the can! It's good to see that neurotic measuring actually pays off. I wanted to get an early print going before I started the lid just because I want to get a rough idea of how big to make the connecting cylinder. Here's some pics:

Here it is on a surface. The soda can tilts a bit with the handle on, but it's not that big of a deal. I mean, it's meant to be held...

I'm surprised how tight of a fit it is despite the fact that this notch isn't even the right size. No seriously, I can shake this handle around and it doesn't fall off.

This is the part where the lid will attach. I think I'm going to make it bigger.

Model and IRL :)

My girlfriend, already using my 3D prints as a chew toy...

Of course, the main purpose of a prototype is finding ways to make the object better. Here's a few I came up with:

1.) Decrease the spacing between the can and handle. So, decrease the width of the arms of the handle.

2.) Increase space of notch of top grip so it actually attaches to rim of can.

3.) Engrave a name into the handle, so handle can also be used as a permanent name tag.

4.) Increase size of the part that connects lid. It looks a bit puny right now.

Accessory Modeling - Work in Progress

Here's a preview of the modeling I've been doing for the Accessory Project. 

 

The can is completely finished, top to bottom. 

That weird little lever thing is actually going to turn into a mechanism that moves the lid for the can. The mechanics of it are really simple, just a cylinder that can rotate along a something that will also hold it in place. 

I think I'm going to decrease the spacing between the handle and the can. 

Digital Collection of Fossils

Autodesk has started (another) community of downloadable 3D objects. This time, there's a focus on digitized fossils. Apparently these were modeled from the original fossil, not some second hand cast replica; an example of how Autodesk actually utilizes there tremendous incomes for good.

Gorilla_Skull_1 (click to view in 3D)

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The feel of this rendering is quite similar to that Catch123D app Autodesk put out not too long ago. As a fan of both Geology and CAD modeling,  I think this is a pretty cool idea.

Article - http://gizmodo.com/3d-print-your-own-20-million-year-old-fossils-1460308839

Database - http://africanfossils.org/#

SHOES!

These sneakers are made with a special elastic filament sold by the company who made the original design. Recreus is the name, and if you go to their website, the only thing they sell are those filaments. The design for the shoes is available to the public on Thingiverse. I don't know what's cooler, these badass shoes, or the revolutionary elastic filament. This, I'm sure, opens up a whole new realm of possibilities.

See it in action here: