Digital fabrication tools have revolutionized the way designers, engineers, and artisans express their creativity. With the right resources, you can learn to use these powerful instruments in no time! Whether it’s 3D printing or laser cutting that interests you, these articles will provide useful tutorials and inspiration for makers of all levels. Discover how digital fabrication can open up new possibilities so that your craftsmanship is truly extraordinary!
Although I believe this impressive, apparently working wooden rubber band gun and the page that presents it originate in Japan, I’m not having any luck with machine translations of the accompanying text. So unfortunately I have no other information. If you can identify the maker or other details, and can spare the time, I’d appreciate your comment, below.
OK, almost entirely: The actual cutting is done by a metal drill bit. Everything else, however, is Lego system elements. It looks like the machine uses a “raster” type subtractive process, covering the surface of the block in a close-packed grid of holes, each of which is drilled to an appropriate depth to form the final surface contours.
I have seen a lot of steampunk rayguns come and go, over the years, but not any that I can remember liking as much as this set of matched-but-not-identical “dueling pistols” from Canadian artist Jeff de Boer.
Charles Stross’ excellent new novel, Rule 34 (Ace Books), is a futuristic police procedural set in a near-future Edinburgh, in which 3D printing has become boringly ubiquitous. You can buy safe, prepackaged 3D printers at the local housewares shop, and they’re handy for whipping up generic replacement parts for broken appliances (at one point a […]
I got my hands on a Kinect a while back (thanks to Ashley Burns of Waggener Edstrom for sending me one to mess around with), and I’ve been itching to scan something and print it on my MakerBot Thing-O-Matic. I got as far as scanning things with Kyle McDonald’s KinectToStl, but as I have no skills with 3d modeling software, I had no clue how to turn it into something printable. I tried printing some of the STL files I got out of that tool, but they were way too complex. With some open source software, a few simple steps, and an occasional not-so-simple-step here and there, you can print what your Kinect can see.
Professor Arthur J. Olson of Scripps demonstrates a 3D printed model of a virus that self assembles when shaken. Olson is head of the Molecular Graphics Laboratory, which uses 3D computer models, 3D printing, and augmented reality to create tools for life science researchers and educators. He is also the project leader of Fight Aids […]
OK, in point of fact, this cool gadget from Matt Bitz of Liquidware could be used for pretty much any type of marksmanship training, but “sniper” was a pretty hard headline to resist. It couples Liquidware’s TouchShield Slide, an Arduino Duemilanove, and a lithium battery-pack in a camouflaged aluminum case for a handy range-gadget that records hits on a target—just tap the touchscreen with the tip of a round to mark a hit—and calculates accuracy and precision in real time. [Thanks, Jake!]
