If you’re a maker, 3d printing is an incredibly useful tool to have in your arsenal. Not only can it help bring your projects to life faster, but it can also offer unique results that would be difficult (or impossible!) to achieve with traditional methods. In these blog posts, we’ll provide you with some essential information and tips regarding 3D printing for makers—including the basics of how to get started, plus creative tutorials for spicing up your projects. Whether you’re already familiar with 3d printing or are just starting out, these resources will help take your game-making skills even further!
Photogrammetry has been with us for as long as we’ve had cameras. Autodesk has taken it to its logical next step with Project Photofly. Using a standard point and shoot camera you can take a series of photos of an object, upload them to the cloud, and get a detailed 3D model back that can be manipulated with standard design software.
I love Tony Buser’s 3D-printed Mars rover, especially how unrealistically cute he is!
Make reader Anders Haglund sent word of Edward Ford’s Project ShapeOko, which strives to build a complete and open DIY desktop CNC machine (including electronics) for around $300.
The KDS-POTO2 camera by Kit Man of kit da studio is over the top. Assembled from laser-cut acrylic parts and scavenged lenses, this fully functional manual film camera takes interesting pictures reminiscent of an analog Hipstamtic or DIY Lomo and seems like it would be a blast to assemble.
From Thingiverse user PrintTo3D, who calls them BicChucks, and was inspired by a set of pen-cap cutlery attachments from lusofer.
The sheer magnificence of Miguel Valenzuela’s Lego pancake CNC is matched only by the delight of his daughters Maia and Lily “printing” their own Mickey Mouse pancakes. Love this project!
A sphericon is a shape that you get by: (1) rotating a symmetric polygon about a mirror axis to get a solid of revolution, (2) cutting the solid into two equal pieces, and (3) putting the pieces back together differently. With a lathe or a 3D printing machine, it is easy to make many kinds of sphericons, with different starting polygons. Here is one based on a star.
