prosthetic knowledge

Digital Merzbau

Chinese project combines art, 3D printing, geometry and recursion:

Merzbau is a project by a German artist Kurt Schwitters began in 1923 in Hanover for a series of room transformation of his house. With art of collage, restructuring process, he re-used the discarded building materials from which made into furniture, walls to ceiling, creating a form of decorative and structural integration, basically following a certain design rules. Today, in the computational context, we tried to create a series of our own logic from the prototype “Merzbau”.

More Here

3Doodler 

In case you missed this the past couple of days, an impressive handheld 3D printing pen, allowing to draw in three dimensions. Video embedded below:

Have you ever just wished you could lift your pen off the paper and see your drawing become a real three dimensional object? Well now you can!

3Doodler is the world’s first and only 3D Printing Pen. Using ABS plastic (the material used by many 3D printers), 3Doodler draws in the air or on surfaces. It’s compact and easy to use, and requires no software or computers. You just plug it into a power socket and can start drawing anything within minutes.

Oh, and it’s also the most affordable way to 3D print… by a looong way! With 3Doodler we’re making fun 3D creation accessible to everyone.

You can find out more at the project’s Kickstarter page here

3D Printed Christmas Cookies 

Seasonal geometric biscuits formed with a 3D printer by Ralf Holleis, created as part of a workshop on printing with new materials - video embedded below:

3D PRINTED CHRISTMAS COOKIES from Ralf Holleis on Vimeo.

More photos here

OMOTE 3D 

A Pop-Up Shop in Japan which acts as a 3D Printing photobooth - via Spoon and Tamago:

… what’s being called the world’s first 3D printing photo booth is set to open for a limited time at the exhibition space EYE OF GYRE in Harajuku. From November 24 to January 14, 2013, people with reservations can go and have their portraits taken. Except, instead of a photograph, you’ll receive miniature replicas of yourselves.

Reservations are taken only through the website. You can pick from 3 sizes, S (10cm), M (15cm) and L (20cm) for 21,000 yen, 32,000 yen and 42,000 yen, respectively. But there are group discounts! This would be really fun to do with your kids, who seem to grow up just way too fast.

The project was brought to you by the creative powerhouse PARTY.

You can visit the Omate 3D website (in Japanese) here

Phantom Geometry 

Experimental 3D printing using special UV light responsive resin, by Liz and Kyle von Hasseln:

Phantom Geometry from Liz and Kyle von Hasseln on Vimeo.

This is ‘Phantom Geometry’, a masters thesis in architecture by Kyle von Hasseln and Liz von Hasseln, developed in the Robot House at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI_Arc). It was awarded the inaugural Gehry Prize at the SCI-Arc commencement ceremony on September 9.

This work is centered on the development of a system for generating material volume from streaming information. The system uses UV light from a modified DLP projector to continuously and selectively cure photo initiated resin within a shallow vat system we developed for the project. The cured part is simultaneously and continually pulled away from the vat, allowing un-cured resin to flood in beneath it to be subsequently cured. The result is the material reification of streaming data that emerges along the motion path of the Staubli robot maneuvering the vat/projector apparatus.

This system of fabrication relies upon native real-time feed-back and feed-forward mechanisms, and is therefore interruptible and corruptible at any time. The streaming data input may be transformed or modified at any time, and such interventions impact emerging downstream geometry.

Laywood 

New 3D Printing filament allows makers to create objects in wood, created by Kai Parthy - via 3Ders.org:

This wood filament LAYWOO-D3 is a wood/polymer composite - the filament contains recycled wood and harmless binding polymers. The material has similar thermal durability as PLA and can be printed between 175°C and 250°C. “After printing it looks like wood and smells like wood.” Depending on the temperature you can even print wooden-like objects with annual rings. At 180°C, the prints has a light color, at 245°C it becomes darker. Afterwards the printed objects can be cut, grinded or painted.

You can watch a video via the excellent Tumblr blog of roomthily, or find out more at Hack A Day and 3Ders.org

Microsonic Landscapes

3D-Printed music visualizations of modern albums. Using Processing, each album’s soundwave was analysed and created a unique visual form. The albums are: Jewels by Einstürzende Neubauten, Another World by Antony and the Johnsons, Pink Moon by Nick Drake, Third by Portishead, and the composition “Für Alina” by Arvo Pärt.

An algorithmic exploration of the music we love. Each album_s soundwave proposes a new spatial and unique journey by transforming sound into matter/space: the hidden into something visible.

More can be found at the project’s website here

Shape Of An Angel 

Japanese 3D Printing service that can replicate the form of a mother’s developing child in utero - via DigInfo (video embedded below):

Fasotec and Hiroo Ladies clinic, have started a service that makes 3D models showing the inside of the abdomen during pregnancy. This service began on July 30.

Currently, many clinics provide photos taken during ultrasound scans. But this is the world’s first service to provide a 3D model that you can actually hold.

“We actually got three expectant mothers to try this out. They said it felt great to see how their babies looked before birth, and to be able to actually hold the inside of their own body. They also enjoyed looking at the model after giving birth, thinking, “This is how my baby looked inside me” and recalling how it felt to be pregnant.

More information and photos can be found at DigInfo here

The World’s First 3D Printed Gun 

A pistol partly made from plastic 3D printed parts:

I assembled it first into a .22 pistol … It’s had over 200 rounds of .22 through it so far and runs great! To the best of my knowledge, this is the world’s first 3D printed firearm to actually be tested, but I have a hard time believing that it really is the first (if anyone can point me to earlier work, it would be much appreciated) … No, it did not blow up into a bazillion tiny plastic shards and maim me for life - I am sorry to have disappointed those of you who foretold doom and gloom.

Potentially worrying trend … (link)

Makerbot Mixtape 

3D-Printed digital music player in cassette tape form, can be put together manually and holds 2GB of data - video embedded below:

Rediscover a lost classic - MakerBot a Mixtape!

The MakerBot Mixtape Kit gives you the power to create the ultimate gift. We ship you the electronics, you print the STLs on this page in any of our terrific filament colors and snap the whole thing together!

This project is designed to work with the MakerBot Mixtape Kit, available on our store.

If you have a 3D printer, all the parts of the casing are available at Thingiverse here. Otherwise, you can get all the pieces to put together yourself (including the prepared electronics) from the Makerbot store here

Exoskeleton 

3D printed shoes by footwear design student Janina Alleyne takes inspiration from biological structures:

Exoskeleton - Inspiration drawn from the architectural structure and silhouettes of external skeletons of marine invertebrates, creatures and insects. Using the advanced technology of 3D Printing these fluid anatomical shapes will not only be translated visually but also in the design process.

More Here

Beautiful Failures 

Cunicode examines the beauty in errors and accidents of objects created with a 3D printer:

On the path to get the perfect 3D-Print, many meters of filament get piled up as discarded disappointments,
as bastard objects that never were,
as unborn half-things…

… and they are beautiful …

More Here

BRICKiPhone 

Latest Free Art Technology project is a fully functional iPhone case for that 80s Manhattan executive look:

See, we know you carry the most ubiquitous device of the yuppie class. You probably also have some really fugly ‘protection cover’ on it, when all you ever wanted in life was to go back to the day anyway, right? Solved.

BRICKiPhone is built from four 3d printed pieces. Insert iPhone earplugs, an iPhone 4/4s and go. It snaps together to transforms your iPhone into the hottest thing since the last time people rocked bricks (including the coveted belt clip). Since it prints in four pieces it can be printed with the at home 3d printer of your choice.

F.A.T. also supplies the files to create your own 3D printed version, which you can find here

3D Printed Chairs Made From Recycled E-Waste

Interesting project that combines ecology, design, and robotics. Electronic waste gets grounded into a paste which is used as the material to construct a chair by a robotic arm. From Inhabitat:

Dirk Vander Kooij is set to unveil a new line of “Endless” furniture made from recycled e-waste at “The Future in the Making”, an exhibition organised by Domus that will take place during Milan Design Week 2012 …

… The Endless robot uses ground-up plastic from old refrigerators and squeezes it in a continuous thread, layer by layer, to form pieces of furniture. This kind of low-resolution 3D printing can produce a chair in just 3 hours. The technology also enables the designer to modify a model after a piece of furniture is produced – a bonus that the traditional injection moulding process doesn’t offer. The machine can be programmed to build furniture of any shape and size.

Here is a video of the whole process in action - highly recommended

More information can be found at Inhabitat here