3D Printing a Very Full Caterpillar
At the end of March we organized a 3D printing design challenge with the world famous online educative platform Digital Tutors. The objective was to create your interpretation of any children’s’ storybook character, that is, it had to be an original design and not based on an existing illustration.
The Very Full Caterpillar by Digital Tutors community member timeRemapper was one of these designs that had made it to the Top 3 and would eventually get 3D printed. Below you’ll find an image of the 3D render followed by pictures of the actual 3D print.
You can find the work-in-progress of the Very Hungry Catterpillar by timeRemapper on his website at this link. The model was 3D printed in multicolor. We are currently also still awaiting the files to 3D print the remaining two entries which you can see below. As soon as we receive these, we’ll make sure to post the results on our blog as well. For now you can enjoy the 3D renders.
Are design challenges your
3DTin’s Challenge Designs brought to Life
At the beginning of May 3DTin launched a design challenge on their platform where we would end up 3D printing the top 3 designs. The challenge ran from the beginning of May until the end of that month and was followed by a voting process. After some debating and reviewing we (collectively with 3DTin) came up with our winning three.
We congratulate 3DTin community members Germán, Stealth the third and Akin and would like to thank all 3DTin participants for their entries.
All designs were 3D printed in multicolor and made in 3DTin. If you like 3D printing challenges, we currently still have the Metal Accessories Challenge running at i.materialise that runs until the end of July. You can of course also make use of 3DTin’s easy-to-use software package to participate in this challenge. Just export your file as an STL and submit it to our challenge page.
You can also use 3DTin to create awesome designs that you can 3D print and showcase or even sell in our gallery. F
The Month of June in 3D Printing
As tradition has it, we bring you the month of June in 3D printing. It’s has been a very interesting month that brought us some more crowdfunding projects, a wonderful Metal Month at i.materialise and a 3D printer that helps you make your own burrito! Yes, you’ve read it correctly… So let’s dive straight into the juicy details.
Let’s start this month off with a well deserved unlocked achievement by Materialise CEO Wilfried Vancraen: Get Chosen as the Most Influential Figure in Additive Manufacturing by industry professionals around the world. Read all about it here.
And of course there was the Metal Month at i.materialise. It brought two design challenges that are currently still ongoing, new metallic materials and finishing processes with a nice increase in the items available at our gallery. During this period our community could also enjoy a nice 10% discount promo code called metalmonth2012 on all metallic orders (still valid till June 30th!)
At the same time we saw
Tinkercad Father Day’s challenge winner
About 2 weeks ago we announced the winner of the Father’s Day Challenge hosted by Tinkercad. Sam McCulloch’s Vulcan Bomber was voted as the number 1 design. Not only was his Dad very happy with the 3D printed gift, he also did a nice job on painting the model.
But there’s more to it. Sam’s Dad, David McCulloch is a volunteer at the XM655 maintenance and preservation society. He’s been a lifelong fan of aircrafts, got his pilot license at the age of 17, and works closely with the Oxford 150 Squadron Air Cadets.
As Father’s day 2012 coincided perfectly with an annual event called “Wings and Wheels”, the real Vulcan Bomber did some taxi runs, engine blasts, and was available for the public to examine.
Being a volunteer, David McCulloch dedicates a lot of time to the restoration project. It also seems they’re actively looking to continue to raise funds of ongoing restoration costs. So, all you aviation enthusiasts out there get in touch!
Tinkercad is the easiest way to do and l
3D print something in Bronze
Metal Month is in full gear now! We’ve got two metal based design challenges running, we’ve given you the ability to gold plate your stainless steel designs, and all of this at a 10% reduction through the month. Well guess what? We aren’t done yet. How about being able to 3D print in bronze as well? Does that sound cool to you guys? It sure as hell does to us, so without any further ado…
Starting today we’re giving you the possibility to 3D print in bronze.
To celebrate this new material, we’ve already taken our time to 3D print some nice designs by different designers for you. Below you can have a look at what bronze 3D printing looks like.
Okay great… so what about the print size? Well for now we are offering the ability to 3D print in bronze on a 5 x 5 x 5 cm bounding box. This will eventually change, but as we consider this a trial phase we want to start off small and work our way up as time goes by.
As for the pricing… well considering we’re trial
Announcing the Metal Accessories Challenge
A new Design Challenge in Stainless Steel
As was promised at the beginning of the month, we proudly introduce our second design challenge centered around metals. This time the weapon of choice is stainless steel and the theme is revolved around creating an accessory that makes your life easier. The challenge will be running from today (Friday the 15th of June) until the end of July (Tuesday 31st). So what are the typical kind of accessories that you could design or redesign in stainless steel? Below are some examples to get your brain stimulated…
Just some basic metallic accessories you could design or redesign
Of course there are other accessories as well, but this should give you a quick idea or reference to start with. So… the next obvious question would be “What’s the size we’re allowed to design in?” The answer to that question is: Anything that fits within a bounding box of 250cm3. So for example a bounding box of 10x5x5cm would be just fine. Your design has to be
Let your steel get a taste of Gold
Today we are introducing a new finishing process for your stainless steel designs: Gold Plated Stainless Steel. This is a finishing procedure where we take your stainless steel model and dip it in a gold bath giving it that gold plated look. We can offer your model in a polished or unpolished gold plating. The big difference here is that your polished pieces will feel smoother and look shinier whereas the unpolished ones will have that natural gold plating feel to it.
The model that you see here was made in Tinkercad by one of their community members called Whystler.
So… what’s it going to cost me to add some gold to my stainless steel? The answer is 6,00US$ whether its with a polished or unpolished finish (please note that this is on top of your cost for the stainless steel model).
The above model was designed by Tommy Rombouts (www.tommytones.com)
Okay… so I like the way it looks, but what I would also like the know how it feels in my hand? For this we
FabLab visits i.materialise
Last week we had the honor of receiving some lovely members from Belgian and Dutch FabLabs. They came with their beautifully creative minds to get a glimpse of i.materialise and the facilities we have at our disposal while sharing grand ideas and concepts for the future.
FabLabs (short for Fabrication Laboratories) are a wonderful establishment around the world where creative minds can come together to try out new ideas and fabricate new things. This is also why you’ll find the use of 3D printing commonplace amongst the FabLabs. As we all know by now, not all 3D printers can be stored at a FabLab as it would need a tremendous space and a huge staff to keep it all running. This is where 3D printing services like i.materialise come in.
So to get a better understanding of i.materialise, we decided to give them an introductory presentation and a guided tour of the Materialise facilities where our guests got to meet our different 3D printers. Afterwards we shared some interesting
Winner of the Father’s Day Challenge Announced
On May 16th we announced a design challenge for Father’s Day where participants could design something fun for their father with the wonderful Tinkercad software package. The challenge got some fun and interesting entries on their Facebook challenge page but as always, there can only be one winner. After a public vote it was made clear that Tinkercad user Samuel McCulloch was the favorite who’ll end up giving his dad a 3D printed Vulcan Bomber.
The Vulcan Bomber made in Tinkercad by Samuel McCulloch
On behalf of i.materialise we congratulate Samuel for winning the challenge and we also congratulate all participants for being a wonderful bunch to their dads. Your fathers can be proud!
However… we’ll be the first ones to let you know to never give up and keep on trying and participating in more design challenges. There are constantly more of them being organized such as the Silver Bead Design Challenge that is currently running at i.materialise. For this design challenge you
Imaginarium brings us Silver Indian Beauties
Mumbai based Imaginarium invites you to take a trip to the beauties of Indian culture in 3D printed silver. Today marks the beginning of a wonderful jewelry collection that’s brought to you by these talented creative minds. We start off today with three wonderfully detailed silver pendants that can be yours for the amazing price of 49,90 Euros and more lovely designs are to follow soon.
So if you’re into Indian history and culture, have a look at Imaginarium’s great gallery items. A preview can be seen below.
Do these lovely pendants inspire your creative mind? Do you also like to 3D print in silver? Then don’t hesitate to take a shot at creating some nice silver jewelry yourself by participating in our Silver Bead Design Challenge. The top 3 winners gets a free print of their designs!
