Robotic Moth-Bee by Gwygonik

Thingiverse citizen Gwygonik published a post on his website to accompany the above robotic moth-bee designed by his wife.  From his post:

“So once I started printing things, my sci-fi loving wife’s eyes sparkled (more than normal) and she had a ‘we can replace every plastic piece in the house with something custom’ moment. What I love about her is this was immediately followed by ‘you could drive someone mad with real subtle changes, too.’”

Of all of the potentially mischievous uses of a 3D printer, this is the most creative I’ve heard to date.  This could even be automated to a certain extent.  It would be fun to shrink someone’s office supplies.  Heck, it’s not inconceivable that someone could scan in someone else’s objects, then scan the objects they will morph into, create a stream of intermediary 3D models, and slowly replace someone’s beloved coffee mug with a sculpture of a jackalope.

MothBee by gwygonik

This is a "robotic moth-bee" loosely based on a sketch by my wife. Story and more pictures here: gwygonik.posterous.com/66358440

This thing brought to you by

http://myplasticfuture.com/66358440

colin&claire posted a photo:

The Hackable Devices Stand and Makerbot at FOSDEM 2012

This weekend I was so darn excited to get my DrawBot moving that I mostly just threw some numbers into Sandy Noble’s polargraph software and tried drawing stuff.  After looking over Sandy’s excellent Polargraph instructible, I’ve discovered that there’s more to operating a robot than simply shoving bits together and applying electricity.¹

So, tonight I’ll take some measurements and give it another go.  Yay!

1. WHY… WON’T… YOU… DRAW?~

What have you made and shared today?

Bathtoy by Request!

After explaining Thing-A-Day to my daughter, I asked her what she would like me to design for her for day 2. Answer: A sailboat for the bathtub.

Tool for a Working Artist!

Last night, my wife needed a circle template for an art project she was doing. This took about 15 minutes to make in total, from design to finished product. And that is why 3D printing is awesome.

Jewelry (and Tool for Future Jewelry)!

This design is intended to be an envelope to be boolean used (intersection) with other textured designs, we’ll see….

Tool for Learning About Clocks!

I figured this tool might be useful for the MakerBot Clock Makers project and for educators and students looking to explore basic gear mechanics.  (I am spending time each day designing new attachments for it.)

Keep checking back to see what other Thing-A-Day participants are sharing on Thingiverse — and get out there and make some stuff.

mousesquad posted a photo:

maltman23 posted a photo:

Jardin Numerique
at Jardin Moderne
Rennes, France
February-2012

I remember a comment a while back from someone who was pretty adamant that sharing everything would pretty much immediately ruin their business, and I have no reason to doubt that, in that case, this is a reasoned judgement.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in companies sharing everything, opening their doors, and in general collaborating with their customers, in the open.

But a lot of your customers aren’t used to this, and unless you’re directly marketing to consumers, nearly all of them will be locked in to the trade secrets, patents and trademarks model– and from experience, I can tell you that at least some of them will treat open source almost like hazardous waste.

Winning with Sharing in these cases is a heck of a lot more challenging than if you’re working in a field where what you sell goes directly to individuals, because where individuals are eager to form brand loyalty to the more open provider, institutions in this climate are broadly sharing-averse.  But while a radical leap into deep sharing may very well be as dangerous as starting a new company altogether, there are things that aren’t, such as:

• Offering clients a discount if at some specified time down the road, their (anonymized)  commissioned engineering work enters your open tech wiki
• Pushing back on a few Non-Disclosure Agreement terms
• Share on the back end: general technical information, process blogging, specs of dead products
• Publish white papers or even academic ones (full disclosure, I’m in academia!)

Of course none of this will fix the problem that these days bringing a product to market can require a war chest of patents, or that in a lot of sectors open source is a four-letter word, but the steps above are in the right direction, and to me at least they look like good business choices too.

Hoy R2D2 ha fallado por mi primera vez, después de llevar unas 70 horas de producción de piezas. El engranaje pequeño del extrusor (wade-small) se ha roto. Varios dientes han salido disparados de repente.

En estas fotos se puede ver el extrusor con el engranaje roto (el engranaje grande lo he quitado):

Cuando construí a R2, estaba muy ansioso por imprimir, así que el engranaje pequeño lo pegué al eje del motor usando un pegamento bicomponente (poxipol). Ahora con el engranaje roto, no me iba a resultar tan fácil cambiarlo por otro. Lo que hice fue primero meter el eje con el engranaje pegado en acetona para disolver el ABS. Luego, sorprendentemente, el pegamento bicomponente se quitó muy fácilmente y el motor quedó como nuevo.

Lo siguiente fue limar el eje del motor para esta vez meterle el engranaje como dios manda, usando un tornillo. Mediante un banco pequeño y una lima aplané el eje. Fue una operación muy sencilla y fácil, que me llevó poco tiempo. Pensaba que me costaría más.

Por último cogí el engranaje del juego de piezas de R3 (que está todavía sin montar). ¡Menos mal que tenía uno impreso a mano! Introduje la tuerca M3 dentro, lo coloqué en el eje del motor y terminé de montar el extrusor. El resultado: ¡Éxito total! R2D2 volvió a funcionar perfectamente!!

Este ha sido un ejemplo de Auto-reparación. R2 ha impreso su propio recambio. Alucinante!

¿Sabéis las siguientes piezas que imprimí después? Dos engranajes pequeños. Uno para reponer el que le quité a R3 y otro de recambio para R2

Lecciones aprendidas

Hay más fotos en este album de google+

Obijuan

I’ve actually printed something using my DrawBot!!!  Would you like to see it?!

DrawBot test print #4

As you can see, this is a print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.  It has a few problems.  First, the pen was non-ideal.  This will take some experimentation.  Second, the image, as anyone can tell you, is mirrored.  Third, the image was supposed to be much larger – almost as wide as the entire A4 page I’ve scanned in above.  I fiddled with some settings last night, but didn’t accomplish much.  I’ll try again tonight.

However!  I’m really very encouraged!  It actually drew something that roughly corresponds to the thing I’ve asked it to draw!  I’m looking forward to playing with the settings.  The robot is fairly quiet – it’s propped against a wall about seven feet from where I’m sitting and the sound of operation is barely noticeable above the television.