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special instructions!
We know that a lot of you have a need for speed.
So we’re testing 48 hr turnaround on laser cutting orders at Ponoko New Zealand *only*.
48 hr turnaround means we will make, package, and send off your order within 48 hours. Shipping timeframes will remain the same.
Now listen up ’cause there’s a certain way we gotta do this.
When you place your order, put “48hr” in the ***special shipping instructions***.
This is a trial so if we drown in orders or run out of your material, we’ll need to call it off for a bit and regroup. Otherwise, trial closes down on May 31st. First-come, first-serve.
Questions? Email service|at|ponoko|dot|com
A new way to 3D print without the need for support material.
The Mataerial 3D printer uses a 2-part thermosetting resin instead of the thermoplastics commonly used in extrusion-based 3D printers. This approach allows the machine to print a line directly into the air with only a single point of contact with a surface. The surface doesn’t need to be horizontal or even; the material will even adhere to a vertical surface.
Besides the fact that this allows unusually airy and voluminous structures to be made, it also represents a fundamentally different way to 3D print. Other printers gradually builds up 2D layers of material to create a 3D shape. Using the Mataerial, there are no layers. None. The Mataerial instead directly prints a 3D curve into space.
Petr Novikov and Saša Jokic from Barcelona’s Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia created the Material printer during a collaborative research at Joris Laarman Lab.
Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly specified that the device was made during an internship. The Mataerial printer was the result of a collaboration.
Via dezeen
Taylor Gilbert is a proponent of creative technology including Arduino, Processing, and repurposed hardware. Follow him @taylor_gilbert
The Laser Cutter Roundup — a weekly dose of laser-cut love: #124
Hey, Sam here collecting the post from The Laser Cutter.
Make sure you join TLC’s Facebook page.
Above is a laser cut wood Sweet Dreams plaque from Cicily Siller.
After the jump, a book, a good day, a shine, Bretton Park, and a mobile…
Above is a laser cut and etched bamboo book with a living hinge from East Hawaii Techworks.
Above is a laser cut and etched Simple Visa Card from Kaezarrex.
Above is a laser etched book from Verity Lewis.
Above a laser cut steel collaborative installation between Gordon Young and Why Not Associates via Tracy Wilson.
Above is a laser cut acrylic mobile by After Many Years from A Spectacular Life.
Ponoko-made project by Kevin Taylor
Kevin Taylor was the ‘T’ in T&C Lures, a small business started by two guys who loved to fish in the San Diego bay. His partner (the ‘C’ in T&C) was taking a CNC machining class and “just wanted the challenge” of creating his own lures. Their first product, the swimgrub shown below, made the rounds at fishing forums and quickly became very popular.
But after just a few months of starting the company, C moved on and Kevin was left to carry on design and production. He would either have to pay a lot of money to a product development agency or learn to do it himself. So he decided to dive in and learn.
After some initial research on CAD and rapid prototyping, he came across SketchUp 3D design software and Ponoko’s 3D printing service.
Rather than make CNC machined masters for molding the lures and bait, Kevin decided to try 3D printed models. Below are images of his SketchUp designs as well as a model he produced with Rhino.
When he got his 3D printed masters, printed with our superfine plastic in white, he then made a silicone mold which he used to cast the final bait.
But unfortunately, the molds had lines in them due to the inherent layering process 3D printing. “I make my prototype molds out of rtv silicone, and it picks up every single detail on the master,” he explains, and adds that “the fish don’t care about cosmetics, but the consumers do.”
Kevin also wasn’t comfortable with the idea of selling something he had created on his own under the T&C label, and in November of last year, he decided to close T&C Lures.
A new company is in the works, and Kevin will be revisiting his 3D printed bait models. “I caught plenty of fish with them, so I know they work,” he says. “I just have to get the cosmetic part taken care of make them attractive to buyers.”
Kevin’s idea for eliminating the lines in his molds: “What I would have to do is take the 3d print and put a few coats of epoxy around the entire part; this will hide the lines and give it the smooth shiny finish Im looking for.”
Best of luck to Kevin on round two of the indie bait and lure business. I think this sounds perfect for a Kickstarter project.
Easily make circuit boards, jewelry, and other detailed objects with this new desktop CNC.
There are a lot of options for CNC mills right now (and I mean a lot), but it’s rare to see one with the precision necessary to mill a custom circuit board. Finding one at a reasonable cost is simply unheard of.
The Othermill from Otherfab fills that need nicely. With it you can quickly and easily mill any circuit board your heart desires. Now all of your projects can have circuits seamlessly integrated into the design. Since it is compatible with any 1/8″ bit (like a dremel), it can also be used for a variety of other applications from jewelry to precisely machined mechanical parts.
Currently raising funds on Kickstarter, the Othermill started at $1000 for early adopters.
Via Arduino Blog
Taylor Gilbert is a proponent of creative technology including Arduino, Processing, and repurposed hardware. Follow him @taylor_gilbert
Two photographs combined to model the path of a lightning strike
A chance encounter made possible by the informational maelstrom otherwise know as Reddit has resulted in this dynamic reconstruction of a lightning strike.
The animated image above is a render produced in Blender, and you can see how it all came together in a brief but informative post over on Richard Wheeler’s Calculated Images blog. In short, two separate photographers happened to snap pictures of the same bolt of lightning from slightly different positions. Richard then took these pictures and applied them in a similar manner to the way a stereoscopic image is resolved.
The images aren’t exact, but the two views of the strike are close enough to approximate a set of volumetric data. The outcome may not be an example of true scientific precision, however as an artistic experiment it certainly is a flash of brilliance.
Although in this instance, the lightning has only been reconstructed virtually… the next step will surely be for someone to send the data to a 3D printer and give this bolt from the heavens a lasting physical presence.
A new approach to digital interaction through . . . plants?
Using a single wire placed in the soil, Botanicus Interacticus transforms a living plant into a sophisticated interface. Unlike earlier methods that only identify contact, Botanicus Interacticus uses Touché sensing technology to allow for a range of precise and engaging interactions.
Botanicus Interacticus enables us to use gestures as sliding the fingers on the stem of the orchid, detecting touch and grasp locations of a bamboo, tracking proximity between a human and a plant, and estimating the amount of touch contact leading to a rich amount of interaction possibilities.
Botanicus Interacticus is being developed at Disney Research by Ivan Poupyrev in collaboration with Philipp Schoessler, Jonas Loh/Studio NAND, and Munehiko Sato. Be sure to watch the two videos after the jump to learn about the project.
Via The Method Case
Taylor Gilbert is a proponent of creative technology including Arduino, Processing, and repurposed hardware. Follow him @taylor_gilbert
guest post from Danielle Appletone of Otherfab
This is the story of Otherfab. I doubt you’ve heard of us, but I think our story is a good one.
Four months ago, we were working on the future of this country: digital design and computer-controlled manufacturing tools for the STEM education of our children.
So many people in government had worked very hard to carve out the funding for a truly radical program to put shop class back into high schools with a focus on integrating modern technology. It was the first time I had worked so closely with a government organization, and I was blown away by how much they cared about our mission. Maybe that says more about me then them, but either way, it made me happy.
We were about to begin deploying our program into 1000 high schools when the sequester hit. For a small company like us, a sequester-induced delay and complete financial uncertainty of several months was crippling. We had very little buffer and a young team that absolutely could not be furloughed.
But here’s where it gets good.
Instead of wasting the results of what was a year and a half of development, we decided to keep moving forward – without government funding. We did have to shrink our team and work extra consulting gigs on the side, but we were able to weather those months and focus on a short term goal that might lead us to where we wanted to go.
We took the high-school student-friendly software we had made and the lessons we had learned from the people in our pilot program, and we built a machine to do the number one thing requested at TechShops and FabLabs around the world: high quality, precision, CNC circuit board fabrication.
Three days ago, we launched a Kickstarterfor the Machine and blasted through our goal in less than 24 hours. What?
And then the amount of contributions doubled! With no major media coverage, we raised $110k in three days.
This was literally the first bright spot that our team had had in months. But all we needed was a little spark of positive support – followed by a round of beers – and then we got back to work.
One of the drawbacks to meeting your kickstarter goal so quickly is refocusing the public attention on a new set of goals. When we crossed $50k, we started working on gathering support for our big picture goals (“stretch” goals, as they are referred to on kickstarter). We posted them to the very top of our page. These are goals that, when reached, give benefit to everyone. This is what we posted:
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JOB CREATION: At $100,000, a job gets created! We can hire another machinist, and we can manufacture your machines faster.
SOFTWARE FEATURES: At $250,000, (first we jump up and down, and then..) we hire a third software engineer. This means the first release of Othercam has even more features and is able to do things (DXF importing, etc) currently planned for future versions.
DOUBLE PRODUCTION: At $500,000, we add a second production line in a larger manufacturing space with more staff. This has the long term effect of establishing our US manufacturing facility, far ahead of schedule.
THE DREAM: $1 million. We get back to our mission of “shop class for the 21st century, ahead of schedule.” We began our work as part of a government funded push to revive high school shop class, with a modern twist: tools for digital design and CNC manufacturing. If we reach this goal, we will be able to allocate the time and the staff to create the resources for teaching these skills to the next generation.
**********
We have gotten an incredible amount of positive feedback.
Even though we met our first kickstarter goal, people care about our mission, and they want to support us. Even if they don’t have a use for our machine, they want our dream to come true. (My midwife even contributed!) It makes me believe that our dream is shared by a lot of other people.
We are doing so much more than just building machines.
We are bootstrapping our way back into the education space by forming a profitable company and finding creative ways of funding the generation of STEM-focused, core standards-aligned curriculum for our software and machines.
We believe that this must be done, and we will find any way we can to make it happen. If government funding is too unpredictable for our educational initiatives, then we will rally the support of the people, firsthand. We will establish our company, build our own machines, and educate our children with the skills that are necessary to fill the jobs that we are creating in our manufacturing facility.
So yes, we have a Kickstarter campaign, and we believe that it is worthy of your support, but it is only the beginning of what we want to accomplish.
Digital music goes analog once again
We’ve encountered Amanda Ghassaei and her digitally fabricated records before, when she 3D printed some rockin’ tracks that were playable on a standard turntable. This time around, she has turned her talents towards exploring the potential of laser cutting to get her groove on.
The visual impact of this laser cut timber is stunning, but how does a record cut from Maple actually sound? As you’ll hear when you click through to the video after the break, we aren’t really talking hi-fidelity… however as an experimentation it is very interesting indeed.
Amanda went through a number of variations in different timbers and even an acrylic version, in an attempt to reach her goal of successfully fabricating a playable record using the laser cutter. The scientific precision and depth of her investigations has been thoroughly documented on Instructables, so that others can continue where she left off. Be sure to click through to see just how far she went to get things sounding – and looking – so good.
Just type ‘Maker Faire’ in the special shipping instructions.
It’s May, and that means Maker Faire Bay Area is on its way! So we’re running a perennial promo fave:
Get a FREE $50 Making Voucher with your $100 order!
To get your $50 making voucher:
1. Log in to your Ponoko account. If you don’t have one, sign up for free here.
2. Place a $100 minimum order at the Ponoko US or NZ hub.
3. Type ‘Maker Faire’ in the special shipping instructions, and we’ll email you your $50 Making Voucher.
Things you should know: Offer good for making stuff with laser cutting or 3D printing at Ponoko. Showroom or sample store purchases do not qualify. $100 minimum does not include shipping. Other coupon codes or vouchers cannot be used with this offer. Offer only good at Ponoko US and NZ. Offer totally valid for Ponoko Prime accounts! Offer ends at 8pm pacific time on May 31, 2013.
About the free Making Voucher: Promotional making voucher is good for a future order, not the initial $100 order. One promotional voucher per account. (Making Vouchers are good on making costs only.)
Bring your work to life with digital tableware and animal bones!
Sourcing high resolution models for design work (and 3D printing) can be difficult and expensive. There are a fair number of free community 3D models on the web, but many are low quality or have restrictions against commercial use.
That’s where Forme It, a new service that sells high resolution 3D models, comes in.
Forme It’s library of 3D models is broken down into three main areas: Reference, Classic, and Modern. Reference contains models of the natural world, sorted into animal, plant, and mineral. Classic is for functional designs, currently holding a variety of tableware. And Modern at present has a few patterns to texture items with.
To help people actually use the content that they buy, Forme It has started a series of long-form YouTube tutorials. The idea is show one of the available designs used in a practical way, like this tree bark scan made into a container using Blender:
The selection of designs is a bit low to start (since the service only launched today), but the animal collection is really interesting in its specificity. If you need a crow skull and a pheasant heart, now you have a place to go. 
Although the models are not tested on a 3D printer ahead of time, one of the co-founders John Barlow says that the company uses Netfabb to ensure that each design is manifold and that any holes are filled.
If you’d like to see the collection for yourself, check out Forme It here: http://www.formeit.co.uk/
Derek Quenneville is a maker at @3DPhacktory, director at @site3colab, and 3D printing evangelist at @techknight.
Ponoko-made project by Andrea Garuti
Andrea Garuti’s engineering skills earned him the grand prize in the GrabCAD/SolidSmack laser cut toy design competition.
His castle-under-attack toy model — complete with draw bridges, trebuchet, catapult, battleram, and a basilica — blew away all the judges.
Andrea’s inspiration came from the medieval history surrounding his home near Modena, Italy. “It’s not a strict reproduction of a real castle. I wanted to include as many medieval elements as I could,” he says.
As part of the prize, Ponoko sponsored free laser cutting for the winner. Andrea’s epic design required thirty-two P3 (about 31″x15″) size sheets. Rather than ship an entire castle battle over from the US, we worked with our friends Vectorealism, a laser cutting service based in Milan, to have Andrea’s design made closer to home.
The picture below of Andrea’s son standing behind the castle walls demonstrates just how big this toy is!
“I am very happy with the result,” says the castle creator. And so are we! Making *any* interlocking 3D shapes with laser cutting is very difficult because of varying material tolerances. But Andrea’s crazy good engineering skills made this work.
Check out the video below of the catapult in action!
It wasn’t entirely perfect though. “I had some problems with the the trebuchet: the friction caused a weak shot. I had to add an elastic to increase the range and slightly modify the release mechanism,” Andrea explained.
The trebuchet is pretty amazing. Take a look at this video.
I asked if Andrea had an plans for future projects. “A grandfather clock made of wood. The gears would be perfect for laser cutting,” he tells me.
D-Shape Concrete printing awarded first place in Waterfront Construction Competition.
When Hurricane Sandy blasted some 565 miles of coastline across NYC, seawalls and other coastal features received quite a battering. Seeking out novel approaches to repairing and redeveloping these damaged areas, the NYCEDC competition “Change the Course” has awarded a $50,000 first prize to concrete 3D printer D-Shape.
The D-Shape proposal is to scan damaged infrastructure, design and fabricate encasements and extensions to the existing surfaces and then fabricate them off-site.
This approach boasts several noteworthy benefits that go beyond mere quality control:
“…a number of advantages, including lower costs, better quality control (thus longer life), lower labor mobilization and quicker delivery and installations. Furthermore, there is a potential opportunity to rejuvenate the waterfront by letting artists leverage the total freedom of design to add an aesthetic touch without a significant added cost.”
The D-Shape technique may sound labor intensive, when you consider that each individual feature would need to be scanned, customised and then 3D printed, but the company claims this is still more efficient than traditional construction methods.
On top of this, and of particular interest to the powers-that-be, is the estimated cost savings of USD$2.9B.
Consumer hardware and open source software help build a $3500 satellite.
NASA recently put three nanosatellites powered by Google HTC Nexus One smartphones into orbit. Dubbed PhoneSats, they are about the size of a coffee mug. The satellites are intended to demonstrate how the rapidly decreasing cost and increasing power of off the shelf hardware and open source software can be used for a new generation of accessible, low-cost space research.
The satellites cost between $3500 and $7000, and the signals they transmitted were picked up by thousands of amateur radio operators who submitted the information packets they received to NASA. NASA then compiled the packets into images and released them back to the public (see below).
The PhoneSats were expected remain in orbit for approximately 10 days after their April 21 launch. They have since de-orbited on April 27 and have burned up upon reentry.
Via boingboing
Taylor Gilbert is a proponent of creative technology including Arduino, Processing, and repurposed hardware. Follow him @taylor_gilbert
May 2-4 in San Francisco
With 3D printing gaining traction as the democratization of manufacturing, now is the time to discuss the environmental impact and envision a sustainable future for this rapidly growing industry.
To anser the question ‘Can 3D printing go green?’ Swissnex, an organization that fosters connections between Switzerland and San Francisco, is coordinating a multi-day forum on 3D printing and biomaterials.
All are welcome to attend The Ethics and Sustainability of 3D Printing conference this Thursday in San Francisco. The four hour event includes speaker presentations, panel discussions, demos, and a reception. Advanced tickets are just $10, and free for students under 25.
There will also be a hands-on workshop on Saturday for creating your own biomaterials.
On Friday, experts ranging from business leaders and venture capitalists to government funded researchers and academic scholars will convene to discuss their insights, debate future scenarios, and develop a roadmap for achieving sustainability across the 3D printing industry.
• Get tickets for the conference here.
• Get tickets for the workshop here.
The Laser Cutter Roundup — a weekly dose of laser-cut love: #123
Hey, Sam here collecting the post from The Laser Cutter.
Make sure you join TLC’s Facebook page.
Above is a laser cut business card from b-type design.
After the jump, a stormtrooper helmet, desires, madness, and a plotter…
Above is a laser cut cardboard Stormtrooper Helmet from Aaron Muszalski.
Above is a limited edition laser cut paper Desires from Kev Munday.
Above is a laser cut architectural model from CSondi.
Above is a cardboard plotter from Niklas Roy is not laser cut, but it could be – see the video here.
The Blender 2.67 release includes a feature packed 3D printing toolbox
Blender has long supported the .STL file format used to export for 3D print and it is very welcome news that there will be additional support within the software to help modelers. As a popular, free and open source 3D modeling software package, these new features will greatly help save users’ time in finding issues with their models.
- Statistics – includes volume and area calculations to help you determine the print price in a particular material.
- Error checking – among a range of checks includes those for non-manifold surfaces – to help users find self intersecting planes or edges that might result in errors.
David is an industrial designer from New Zealand. He contributes a weekly article on personal fabrication for Ponoko. Follow him on Twitter!
Wednesday May 1 in San Francisco
Art/tech nonprofit CODAME is “exploring the dimensions of 3D printing” — all 4 of them. What’s the fourth dimension of 3D printing? You’ll have to find out from CODAME featured artist and speaker Stefano Corazza.
CODAME 3D PRINTING will be at Adobe Systems in SOMA San Francisco on Wednesday, May 1 from 6-9pm. Tickets are donation only, but $10 is recommended.
There will be performance art, live music, 3D printing show & tell, plus talks on 3D printing as applied to Business, Gaming, Manufacturing, Biology, and Art. Check out the full featured speaker/artist profiles here, including Ponoko CMO Kristen Turner (yep, talkin’ about myself in 3rd person).
So come to CODAME 3D Printing! It’s a lot of bang for your donated buck. Donate bucks ie get tickets here.
Can’t make it to this event? CODAME has an extensive calendar of events lined up for their 2013 program — everything from data visualization and hacking to fundraising and a full-on festival.
A look inside the history of the Hobby Shop.
The MIT Hobby Shop was founded 75 years ago by a group of students who wanted to make things, who wanted to bring their ideas into the real world. The Shop has changed considerably over the years, but it still relies heavily on peer-to-peer teaching and an interdepartmental approach.
In the 1937-38 academic year, Vannevar Bush, then Vice President of MIT, granted a group of 16 MIT students permission to use a room in the basement of building 2. With equipment they found around the Institute they set up a wood and metal shop in the 16-foot by 22-foot area. The club members chose the name “Hobby Shop” based on their belief in the philosophy that the well rounded individual pursued interests outside their profession – hobbies.
Read more about the history of the Hobby Shop on their site.
Via MAKE
Taylor Gilbert is a proponent of creative technology including Arduino, Processing, and repurposed hardware. Follow him @taylor_gilbert
The Laser Cutter Roundup — a weekly dose of laser-cut love: #122
Hey, Sam here collecting the post from The Laser Cutter.
Make sure you join TLC’s Facebook page.
Above is a laser cut acrylic bumble bee necklace from Richardson & Richardson.
After the jump, a diving helmet, a frogs on a plate, a table, and a business card…
Above is a Diving helmet made from laser cut cardboard from Aaron Muszalski.
Above are 3D printed frogs of various thicknesses on a laser cut acrylic plate from Creative Tools.
Above is a an example of Radiolaria – a new app from Nervous System that creates a cell structure – here Baltic birch was CNC cut and inlaid with laser cut acrylic to make a table.
Above is a laser cut business card from Aaron Taylor-Waldman.