Digital Fabrication

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!

Fab-your-own Lego

Fab-your-own Lego

Check out the work of Ottawa maker Andrew Plumb. A few months ago, he created the .stl of a four-stud disk, uploaded it to Thingiverse, prototyped it on his Makerbot and then sent it off to fabbing service Shapeways to be output in plastic as well as bronze-infused steel. In more recent experiment, Plumb used […]

Printable chess set

Printable chess set

This fun chess set ostensibly can be printed by a 3D printer, though there seem to be a lot of overhangs to me. Nevertheless it’s a fun idea. Basically, creator laird designed each piece to display what moves it can make in order to “make Chess approachable for kids.” The king has the tallest ‘body’ […]

Cool CNC-friendly desk lamp design

Cool CNC-friendly desk lamp design

Pedro Mealha was inspired by those 3D plywood dinosaur kits when he designed this lamp, called rhizome, the armature of which is a great example of the emerging “router aesthetics” Bruce Sterling wrote about back in MAKE Volume 11. I also like the wooden race and exposed ball-bearings that let it pivot at the base. Now if we can just persuade him to post the DXF files on Thingiverse… [via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories]