Hop on the tube down to Farringdon? You have plenty of markets, historic sites and just down Clerkenwell road, right next to a quaint, little Vespa dealership you have the newly opened iMakr store. In April we told you about the largest 3D printing store coming to London. They’re two weeks in, with interest in the shop picking up and new services launching for those in the Greater London area.
Toys. What crotchety old man is the only person in the world who doesn’t like’em? That guy? Well, he can gum his pudding in shame, because GrabCAD is putting on a challenge to 3D print a toy and they’re teaming up with Ultimaker to make it happen. The Ultimaker 3D printed toy design challenge is your chance to show what insanely awesome mechanism of play can be pushed through the renal artery, aka extruder, of an Ultimaker 3D Printer. The prize. Well, that would be an Ultimaker 3D printer, valued at $2210.
Some would rather drive down Route 1 in a Porsche Carrera listening to Tiesto instead of modeling the exotic convertible in SolidWorks. If, however, you desire the later, you’ll want to pause your SolidWorks surfacing infusion and jab this into the base of your neck. In a previous post, Mark Biasotti detailed the desire to model the Porsche Carrera GT, taking on the challenge of building the entire surface of the exterior and interior. Of course, a full SolidWorks model of such a car, by such a master, would be a high demand item. So, the week after he told his story, he posted all the files for the car, including the full “2500+ feature beast” that you can roll through till your mouse-clicking finger pops off.
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You all know it. Augmented Reality (AR) headsets are/will be all the rage. From the Oculus Rift to Google Glass, the size, shape and application of these devices is quite broad. Sketchfab, the site that brings you the ability to set up your own 3D portfolio, is holding their fourth Sketchfast competition, and this one introduces the challenge of designing your ideal AR headset… in 3 days. Ready, Set, GO.
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When I’m wrestling a ham and cheese sandwich in 3 inches of water, I’m not paying attention to anyone else around me. There are already devices to get people like me out of the pool (tazers hurt) but there are just not enough (read: any) device that take advantage of modern technology to save the life of a drowning child. With the #1 cause of death for children under five due to drowning, you would think this a high priority problem to solve. The Seal is the product with death prevention in its wearable swim monitor sites. They’re currently going after funding via Indiegogo and we spoke with Charles Hunt, Head of Innovation and Design at Thermocline Ventures, to find out a little more.
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Well, it’s about that time of year to start pitchin’ the ol’ teepee in the backyard for those sugar-infused, marshmallow-happy backyard camp sessions. Before little Timmy gets worked up over how many S’Mores he can have at a time this year, get yourself caught up to speed with our backyard camping edition of Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff! By the way,d we love our SolidSmack readers! Have something cool you’ve come across and want to share it on SolidSmack? Don’t hide it in your neck skin! Send it on in to
Energized by the long strands of dried vegetation, the night became a garden coated in green. The embers sparkled beneath their flesh, igniting veins of air that wrapped the trees. Every where they were and every where they touched left the traces of these links.
Toni Bratincevic – The highly detailed models and work of this Croatian native who now puts his skill to us at Blizzard.
China vs Chinatown -How the two are different in super minimal black and red graphical illustration.
Micro Mayhem – 100% hand-crafted stop-motion car chase/battle scene with a deer head for a hood ornament. Also 100% awesome.
Ski posters of Europe – Hey hun, grab the skis, put your best sweater on and let’s look at these vintage posters with the kids!
x – Terry Moore explains why ‘x’ represents the unknown and how it came to be used in mathematics. Spoiler: You can’t pronounce ‘sh’ in Spanish.
Music Box – A music box made from a soil compactor, a knitting machine made from two excavators. Created by David Cole.
Oscillate – Beautiful and serene. Feel (and visualize) the beat with this School of Visual Arts thesis animation created by Daniel Sierra.
Open letter to moms – Advice and appreciation from the from Kid President. Don’t forget, it’s mom’s day this weekend.
Projects Mighty and Napoleon, the pen and the ruler. Two hardware products announced by Adobe this week at the Adobe MAX conference. Two hardware products that connect you to your device, your files, your work where ever you may be. Connected tools that explore our bond to the web beyond the smartphone and tablet. All of this ‘connectedness’ sealed up even tighter with their other announcement that future releases of the Adobe Creative Suite and other CS products will end to focus on the development of Creative Cloud and delivering the applications through the Creative Cloud subscription model. Adobe just moved all their chips onto that cloud, drawing the silver lining around it with… your identity.
There are ever-increasing piles of 3D prints being amassed upon the earth–single-color, multicolor and a healthy amount of plastic squiggles that didn’t quite make it through the process. It’s sometimes (always) nice to know how people are going about building and creating the contraptions that lead to hours of tinkering and even more hours of creating a form layer-by-layer. While there are some companies who prefer not to show their technology or prints results *ahem*, there are others who do and want to share it with us geeky, like-minded individuals. Richard Horne, aka RichRap, goes into deep, delightful detail about his 3D printing adventures, showing you what has worked, what hasn’t worked so well with a hefty dose of 3D printer development along the way. This is his story…
This week we have the great pleasure of speaking to failure analysis expert, design history aficionado, prolific author, and paper clip extraordinaire, Mr. Henry Petroski! Henry has written over 17 books on design and engineering ranging from the history and importance of the toothpick, to why failure is paramount in the design process.