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Creepy, Surreal 3D Printed Zoetrope

20 Mar, 2012 by JF Brandon in CULTURE, DESIGN, FAB, ROCKIN'

This is what I would truly call ‘a 3D movie.’ This ’3Drehkino’ is a series of 3D printed figures of a man walking. An LED is triggered by each passing figure in his appropriate pose, illuminating it and giving us the illusion of motion. Tobias Krawutschke designs all kinds of Zoetropes (which you can see here), but recently jumped into 3D printing. This particular ‘disc’ was printed by Shapeways. Tobias has kindly documented the whole process. You can make your own Zoetrope and have tiny little men running around your workspace!
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Stylish End of the World Street-Sign Armor

28 Dec, 2011 by Josh Mings in DESIGN

In the realm of stylish SHTF fashion, it’s unlikely you’ll have a lot of choices. Fortunately, given the proper society ending event, there will be plenty of unnecessary road signage lining the untraveled streets. Just snag a couple or five and you’re all set to make colorful shielding to warn any would be attacker that you know how to protect your flesh in style. Ivan Owen of ChainCrafts created the bite/axe shielding concept you see here, strapped to your upper torso with leather belts for ultimate end time appeal.

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DIY Civilization with the Global Village Construction Set

14 Dec, 2011 by Josh Mings in DESIGN, FAB

Moving dirt. Mixing concrete. Inspiring people. Not something you want to do with a spoon, a bucket and lots of screaming. Especially when your goal is to create entire civilizations from scratch. Typically, you would need a few dozers, a backhoe or three and a lot more money to throw at materials and manufacturing equipment. Not any more. Marcin Jakubowski, founder and director of Open Source Ecology, is taking on the challenge of developing low-cost, open-source, diy machinery with the Global Village Construction Set. They were just funded successfully on Kickstarter last month. Now it’s time to kick the machine-making into high gear.

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Great Scotts! Perfect Excuse for Buying a 3D Printer.

15 Aug, 2011 by Bruce Buck in FAB

You know that burning sensation, the one where you dump crunchy granules of fertilizer all over yourself after the spreader explodes? Yeah, that one. What to do? You’re stuck because you want to finish feeding the nitrogen-depleted grass blades, but can’t. Your afternoon plans have been foiled yet again. Well, there’s no better time to dust off that ol’ 3D printer catalog and start looking for some plastic-layering power to make sure that this never. happens. AGAIN.

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The Amazing Full-Size, Open Source CNC Project from FurnLab

08 Aug, 2011 by Josh Mings in DESIGN, FAB, NEWS

Every once in a while, something so cool comes along that it makes you stop whittling that sopping wet piece of MDF and stab the jack knife right in your leg meat. This is one of those things. Today, FurnLab has launched their Open Source CNC project on Kickstarter. Headed up by Jeffrey Matthias, they’re shining some light on custom manufacturing possibilities. He and the Furnlab team has been working long and hard to get this project launched, and they’ve got the experience to show. This is V3 of their DIY CNC System and the best part of all… it’s a modular system capable of full-size CNC cutting. Good enough for weekend prjoects or to take your own business to the next level. Check the details…
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Markus Kayser Harnesses Sun with Lo-Fi 3D Printing Awesomeness

02 Aug, 2011 by Jeffrey Matthias in FAB, TECH

Why mess with printing petroleum-based plastic when there are whole deserts full of sand? Markus Kayser’s Solar Sinter Project ~~converted a hot dog cart~~ constructed a 3D printer that uses a giant Fresnel lens to sinter sand into 3D glass objects. Done as part of his MA studies at the Royal College of Art. There doesn’t seem to be plans (as of yet) to develop this further. That’s ok (no it’s not) because this video of him dragging the printer out into the Sahara and putting the sun to work is absolutely inspiring.

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How to Buy a Large DIY Project Community.
Autodesk Acquires Instructables.

02 Aug, 2011 by Josh Mings in FAB, NEWS

Yesterday, Autodesk gained the upper hand in the CAD industry by now being able to say, “Here’s how to bake a helicopter cake and a paper catapult with which to launch it into the air.” Autodesk has acquired DIY project site and passionate user community Instructables in an all out effort to seal their takeover of sites bringing food and engineering together, while at the same time extending the reach of their creative tool suite of software products and third-party service. Check it.

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Ambiguously Named “Big Robot” Brings Large Scale
3D Printing Closer To Home

01 Aug, 2011 by Jeffrey Matthias in FAB, ROCKIN', TECH

Metrix Create: Space – a collective of ~~evil~~ geniuses in Seattle Washington – recently posted their first results out of their current project, Big Robot. It’s an old CNC machine repurposed to carry a scaled up version of the plastic extruder from the RepRap open source 3D printer project. Aside from being built from mostly Home Depot sourced materials, it has one other penny-pinching aspect that it just too cool: it uses shredded milk jugs as it’s printing material. A few more details and photos after the jump!

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New Kickstarter Project Promises Desktop CNC Fun for $300

01 Jul, 2011 by Jeffrey Matthias in FAB, NEWS, TECH

Ever built a CNC machine? I have. You never, ever hit your budget. Usually it’s because you don’t count on shipping costs or having to deal with sourcing hardware/parts from many different distributors. If you’re trying to recreate a project from instructables, you obviously missed the part where the author failed to mention he spent years scavenging parts to get the total project cost down. I don’t have years, I want my CNC now! Well, there’s hope for you! Project ShapeOko promises a build totaling under $300 for a 12′x12′x8′ cutting area. A summary of the project and why I just pledged $100 after the break.
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Rock the Process: DIY Camera Rig Design. So DIY, Even More Awesome

06 May, 2010 by Josh Mings in RESOURCES

The design process is something we absolutely CRAVE here at SolidSmack. You can throw up pretty pictures all day, but going behind the scenes and getting an idea of the work and thought that goes into a design… simply wonderful.

This is a perfect example. Jonathan Bergqvist wanted to have a shoulder mount for his Canon 7D. Fortunately for him, his pops is a skilled woodworker that can turn a raw stick of birch into a thing of beauty. From start to finish, here’s the process of Jonathan’s dad, Erik, creating the body, handles and focus mechanism for his son’s camera. How cool is that?

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