Workshop

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for the industrial arts from metal and woodworking to CNC machining and 3D printing.

Balloon Gripper with Positive Pressure Mode Can “Shoot” as Well as Grab

Balloon Gripper with Positive Pressure Mode Can “Shoot” as Well as Grab

Last March, roboticist Eric Brown and co-workers at the University of Chicago made headlines with their new, unconventional robot gripper design: a balloon filled with coffee grounds or other grainy material and fitted with a vacuum line. At atmospheric pressure, the balloon is squishy and can be “mushed” around an object—even traditionally hard-to-grip stuff like […]

Giant Pink Printable Gear Heart

Giant Pink Printable Gear Heart

It’s Thing #16909 from faberdasher, directly enlarged from Thing #12208 by emmett (who is also a central node in the Thingiverse cube gears phenomenon). All of these complex bevel-geared kinetic sculptures can be traced back to the mechanical papercraft of Haruki Nakamura, which was, I believe, first adapted for fused-filament printing in Thing #4683 by […]

A Bookshelf for Bookworms

A Bookshelf for Bookworms

Redditor rariya posted this series of photos documenting the construction of a curvy bookshelf called Bookworm, which she designed and built as an assignment for class. According to her comments, the shelf is made of pine and is finished with linseed oil. It took about 35-40 hours to construct and she paid $165 for materials, […]

Tinplate Kinetic Valentine

Tinplate Kinetic Valentine

Becky shared the goodness that is Tinplate Girl’s collection of free online instructional videos and downloadable project patterns back in October. This simple kinetic sculpture called “Be Mine” is actually the work of her father, Marc. Tinplate Girl, whose name is Adriane, writes: He made the hinges himself. Even though the design was pretty solid, […]