Day 49 - Dodecaloop

P wanted something for his office and it is AWESOME. Forty rhombic dodecahedra of awesome. Printed from emmet's Dodeca Chain Loop on Thingiverse.

Thingiverse file: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:50382

Settings: MakerWare "standard" with no raft or supports, on the glass, for 4 hours and 4 minutes.

Day 48 - Do it now!

Here is a bar to put over important documents that you need to deal with as soon as possible, so that they don't vanish into the black hole that is the top of your desk.  Made in Tinkercad with Inkscape for the letters.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day48_doitnow.stl

Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/iINfAnHiVJ5-day-48-do-it-now

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:165410

Settings: Standard MakerWare setting in under 30 minutes, printed upside-down on the glass (no tape). 

Day 47 - Hanging pencil cup

Just a small pencil cup for hanging over the side of a box. Yes, this is another thing for the JMU 3-SPACE classroom, which opens on Monday! After that I can get back to printing for "home"...

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day47_pencilcup.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/4lxp7ipNUIR-day-47-hanging-pencil-cup
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:164975

Settings: Afinia .3mm fast in 37 minutes.

Technical point: I printed it right-side up so it needed support for the handle, since that seemed better than printing it upside-down and needing support for the base.

Day 46 - Salt bowl remake

I love the look of Kulitorum's beautifully simple Salt Bowl on Thingiverse, but I couldn't get it to slice with MakerWare so I remade it in Tinkercad from a truncated sphere shape.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day46_saltbowl.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/2OiCq2cES4t-day-46-salt-bowl-remake
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:164556

Settings: MakerWare "low" in just under an hour.

Technical notes: With the translucent blue filament on hex fill we could see the fill through the bottom of the bowl, so we started over and printed this with "sparseInfillPattern": "sharkfill" in the profile (and also "doRaft": false). Sadly the fill was no longer visible on the bottom with that profile, but it did make a nice pattern up the sides that looks better than the regularity of the usual hex fill.

Day 45 - Tree frog sample model

Various levels of MorenaP's nice Treefrog model on Thingiverse:

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:49943

Settings: Afinia 1.5mm "Fine".  This models is particularly nice because it is built to not need any supports at all other than the raft.  Prints beautifully.

Day 44 - Triangular polyhedra nets

Today we used Tinkercad to design 2D nets that fold up to regular 3D polyhedra, specifically the tetrahedron, octahedron, and icosahedron which all have triangular faces.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day44_triangularnets.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/66ZiQ7gjVMl-day-44-triangular-polyhedral-nets
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:163459

Settings: Makerbot Replicator 2 on "Standard", which is .2mm resolution, in 11 minutes for the tetrahedron, 22 minutes for the octahedron, and 38 minutes for the icosahedron.

Technical notes: The nets are made to have .2mm (one layer) base thickness plus another .2mm (another layer) for the faces themselves, which are inset just a bit from the base layer so that fold lines develop naturally. Thicker nets did not fold very well and tended to snap along the edges.

Day 43 - CGR Catan trophy

And for the winner of Catan, a trophy! The current winner in the house gets to display this tiny trophy on their shelf. This was made by our 8-year-old son by modifying Josh Goldenberg's Championship Trophy on Tinkercad.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day43_CGRcatantrophy.stl

Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/eoe4ebtUgjj-day-43-cgr-catan-trophy

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:162897

Settings: Afinia .2mm default normal, in 49 minutes.

Technical note: This was our first test of Afinia's Value Line gold filament. It's definitely not as nice as their Premium Line filament - sort of rough and stringier - but it prints up okay and even has a sparkly type of finish. This particular model printed with only a little of support under the "C" and some very tiny support lines in a couple of other strategic places.

Stuff you might want to change: A heat embossing tool might clean up the rough spots?

Day 42 - Catan numbers

We play Catan a lot at the dinner table and everything gets a little rough around the edges. Our number disks in particular looked a little shabby so we made some spiffy replacements.  The numbers were made using Inkscape and Tinkercad, with the font-extruding technique from Day 27.  We used height instead of dots to indicate frequency of the numbers.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day42_catannumbers.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/17sfwmLT2Xg-day-42-catan-numbers
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:162420

Settings: Replicator 2 on "Standard" with no raft, on the glass, in just under 2 hours (for all the numbers together).

Technical notes: 42!

Day 41 - Catan card holder

Today, something long-awaited in our house: A card holder for Settlers of Catan! The design is an extension of Zarquon's Game Card Holder, which is itself a derivation of condac's Game Card Holder on Thingiverse. In this version Tinkercad was used to add tabs on the tops and bottoms as well so that you can make a grid for your cards when playing the Cities and Knights expansion game; if you order the cards as in the picture it can help you keep track of which commodities and progress cards go with which resources. We also made the corner walls higher since our cards tend to be bent up a bit and need more storage space as a result.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day41_catancardholder.stl

Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/hhFWNpY1AKl-day-41-catan-card-holder

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:161688

Settings: Afinia with .2mm resolution on "normal", in 27-29 minutes for each of the twelve pieces.

Technical notes: The 12 pieces fit together just perfectly with the settings above on this particular printer. The blue board in the picture is the excellent Official Plastic Catan Board from mycatanboards.com.

Day 40 - Cheese doorstop

Yet another thing for the JMU 3-SPACE classroom: some cheese to keep the door open. Design from terenceang's Cheeze Door-Stop remix of mpv4gb's Swiss Cheese Doorstop on Thingiverse.

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:49512

Settings: Afinia .3mm fast. Some of the circles came out rough but since it is on the floor I don't think anyone will notice.

Technical notes: I printed it scaled down 75% so it would fit easily on the Afinia build platform. It's a little smaller than a typical doorstop but fits nicely under the door and people won't trip over it. It sort of looks like a small square of cheese when in use since most of it is under the door.

Day 39 - CGR boat

Our son designed today's print in Tinkercad.  It is a test design for a 3D-printed boat for use in flooding emergencies.  This was his third design, optimized for rough waters and ability to float after being dropped from a rooftop into water.  He used Marissa's "Capsule" Tinkercad shape script.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day39_CGRboat.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/4BOEtvur6PW-day-39-cgr-boat
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:160911

Settings: Afinia .3mm default fast in 12 minutes.

Day 38 - 3-SPACE Afinia fan cover

With the start of classes in the JMU 3-SPACE classroom just a week or so away, today's print is an upgrade of Day 24's Afinia fan grate:

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day38_3spacefan.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/1V3TpbQ78EJ-day-38-3-space-afinia-fan-cover
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:160464

Settings: Afinia .2mm normal defaults in 50 minutes.

Technical notes: At .3mm fast, the letters in the second line did not come out very well.  The JMU logo was based on the true JMU athletic logo font, and the letters were brought into Tinkercad to combine with the fan cover after using the method of Day 27 to get non-text paths for letters from Inkscape.

Day 37 - Creeper desk ornament

Okay, I've been traveling and I am very tired.  One more day of something simple.  A creeper face to keep you company on your desk.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day37_creeperdesk.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/54QxllBTrr7-day-37-creeper-desk-ornament
Thingiverselink: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:159856

Settings: Afinia .2mm normal in just over an hour.

Technical note: Although a very simple object, it was made in Tinkercad in a weird way that might come in useful later.  I started with a 10x10x20 box and used control-D to quickly cut and paste that box into an array of boxes, then deleted the boxes that were not part of the outline I wanted.  This gave me a fat outline of the creeper face (see Day 31).  Using multiple copies of that fat outline I shrunk the boxes to make a thin outline.  So this object is made of 1x10x20 boxes and some 1x1x20 boxes all grouped together.

Day 36 - Photo background clips

Today, something very simple but which I think will be very useful for future pictures on this blog: slepcat's Paper Clip to set up simple photo background on Thingiverse.

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:48961

Settings: Afinia .3mm default fast in 29 minutes.

Technical notes: On the settings I used, the gap for the paper came out perfectly. It might be worth keeping this model in mind to help guide future designs that need to have a small clearance gap.

Day 35 - Wormhole candle holder

JamieLang's Wormhole Candle Holder is one of the most beautiful things I have seen on Thingiverse that is easily and reliably printable on a household fused deposition modeling machine.  Its overhang angles are mild enough that no supports are necessary and the wireframe design cuts down on printing time and material.  It fills up the vertical build area on my Afinia almost exactly, and even on low quality resolution settings this piece is stunning when printed.

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:48957

Settings: Afinia with .3mm normal and <10% support setting for minimal supports. Printed without any supports in 2 hours and 11 minutes.

Stuff you might want to change: Since I wanted this piece as something fancy for my dining room table, I initially tried to print this at .15mm "fine" resolution and default supports, but the print time would have been over 13 hours so I backed off to something much faster for a first attempt.  I love it just the way it printed but if I were to give this as a gift I would spend the time to print it at a higher resolution (but keeping the <10% support setting, which should save about a third of the time and material costs).

Day 34 - Ice cream stacker

Counting allowance points to 100 is fine but it takes forever. For a more short-term reward we now have this three-step path to a trip for ice cream. The design is BrianStamile's Mmmmmmmm Ice Cream model on Thingiverse, sliced up with matching indentations and protrusions in Tinkercad.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day34_icecream.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/6WHQ8ngOojd-day-34-ice-cream-stackers
Thingiverse link:

Settings: Afinia .3 default normal, with a total of 1 hour and 8 minutes of printing time for all three pieces.

Technical notes: The indentations and protrusions were made as truncated cones in order to need minimal to no support material. Thank goodness for Tinkercad, which makes it so very easy to take an existing model and slice it, add or remove things, or otherwise remix.  Thank you Tinkercad!!

Day 33 - Icosapillar

Of course every icosahedron jawbreaker trap needs a respectable stand.  Here is a very simple one I made in Tinkercad.  Its top is exactly the shape needed to hold the icosahedron and we filled it with rice as it printed so it would be sturdy.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day33_icosapillar.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/32woyc4gbuS-day-33-icosapillar
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:157871

Settings: Afinia 3D software with .3mm shell on normal, 1 hour and 21 minutes.

Stuff you might want to change: I printed this as a shell since I thought it would be the fastest and because I wanted to put rice inside of it for weight, but the model has a flat horizontal triangular region near the top that did not print well.  If I made this again I would print it with a very loose fill and just add the rice inside the fill cells.

Day 32 - Icosahedron jawbreaker trap

The problem with Day 29's Icosahedron Failure Bowl wasn't with the model, it was with the machine. Turned out that the Replicator 2 needed a new xyz motor wire harness. So now let's try it again:

This year's prize at the SUMS Conference is a lot of jawbreakers trapped inside a 3D-printed icosahedron (symbol for the Mathematical Association of America).

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day32_icosahedrontrap.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/aZINVrmLL51-day-32-icosahedron-jawbreaker-trap
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:157372

Settings: MakerWare custom profile in about an hour an a half. We snuck in the jawbreakers while printing. Settings as used in Day 5 except with shell thickness and roof count of 2:

"numberOfShells": 2,
"roofLayerCount": 2,
"floorLayerCount": 1,
"infillDensity": 0,
"bridgeAnchorMinimumLength": 0.3,
"bridgeAnchorWidth": 0.3,
"doRaft": false,  

Technical notes: This is the second Replicator 2 that I've worked with that needed a replacement xyz motor wire harness within the first few months of use. If your Replicator 2 starts shifting inches to the left or right in the middle of prints, and/or if it makes a loud stuck sort of noise when you do a "home axes", then you too may have this problem. MakerBot technical support took me through a diagnostic routine and then send me a new cable for free in both cases, so call up tech support if this happens to you!

Stuff you might want to change: The model had to be rotated to be flat-side-down, which made the top and bottom be not quite flat. I repaired the bottom but not the top, and this caused some problems when the top part of the model printed by bridging across. If I were to do this again I would get a model from Mathematica and make sure it was rotated correctly before importing into Tinkercad.

Day 31 - Minecraft stamp blocks

Creeper, zombie, and skeleton head blocks for your Minecraft stamping needs.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day31_minecraftstamps.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/km2uKfEYPxK-day-31-minecraft-stamp-blocks
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:156894

Settings: Afinia .2mm normal, 1 hour and 2 minutes for all three head stampers.

Stuff you might want to change: Maybe find some stamp ink pads that aren't seven years old.

Day 30 - Engage lightswitch

I miss ST:TNG.  So today we made a little Picard bling for our downstairs bathroom lightswitch based on zthralls' Rounded Lightswitch Cover on Thingiverse:

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day30_lightsengage.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/lucqw93XA5v-day-30-lights-engage
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:156486

Settings: Afinia with .2mm on "normal", 1 hour and 35 minutes, with a filament switch after the first outline of the letters (which is about 55 minutes into the print).

Technical notes: I got the Roddenberry font from Fontspace and used the Inkscape technique described in Day 27 of this blog to import the word into Tinkercad.  To put the font where Inkscape can find it on a Mac, put the .ttf font files into YourComputerName/Library/Fonts (*not* YourUserName/Library/Fonts).

Day 29 - Icosahedron failure bowl

This year's prize at the SUMS Conference is a lot of jawbreakers trapped inside a 3D-printed icosahedron (symbol for the Mathematical Association of America).  Yes I am working late at night at home again, shut up.  Also the icosahedron only printed halfway before my Replicator 2 had a shifting malfunction that I think is due to a bad xyz motor cable.  So we have a sort of a bowl today.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day29_hugeicosahedron.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/9vCrwEMC8kd-day-29-huge-icosahedron
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:155876

Settings: MakerWare custom profile in about 45 minutes before everything suddenly shifted four inches to the left and we made a pile of angel hair plastic.  Settings as used in Day 5 except with shell thickness and roof count of 2:

"numberOfShells": 2,
"roofLayerCount": 2,
"floorLayerCount": 1,
"infillDensity": 0,
"bridgeAnchorMinimumLength": 0.3,
"bridgeAnchorWidth": 0.3,
"doRaft": false,  

Technical notes: I got the icosahedron from johnchris' icosahedron Community Shape Script on Tinkercad, which meant that I had to rotate it to get it to sit on a face instead of a vertex. In Tinkercad it can be difficult to get things to rotate to just the right position to lie flat on the build plate, so to compensate I added a couple of wedges to the bottom to flatten things out.  Stay tuned for a future full print of this icosahedron once the Replicator 2 is repaired.

UPDATE: Check out Day 32 for a successful icosahedron jawbreaker trap!

Day 28 - Gear box

Tonight I'm tired.  I'm making a box.  The box is JinxTheRabbit's Box and Lid from Thingiverse and I cut a hole in the top with Will and Durgan's gear shape script in Tinkercad.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day28_gearbox.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/jv8fVQ1rMgA-day-28-gear-box
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:48362

Settings: Afinia 3D software .3mm normal, 54 minutes.

Day 27 - Duck & Block resolution testers

With the 3-SPACE class looming closer and closer, my "at home" and "at work" are pretty mixed up. So again I'm printing at home for work. This time we have some resolution testers, so students can see how much it costs in print time to increase resolution, and what kinds of shapes do well even at low resolution.  The duck part is from beekeeper's Ducky Swimming on Thingiverse.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day27_duckandblock.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/aLiPz8rAjBe-day-27-duck-block-resolution-testers
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:154941

Settings: These testers are built for the Afinia H-Series 3D software, with .3mm fast, .3mm fine, .15mm fast, and .15mm fine.  The build times for the individual duck and block are shown on the prints.  The print times for each complete tester are the sums of the corresponding ducks and blocks, plus 10-35 minutes for raft and platform, depending on the resolution chosen.

Technical notes: The Afinia 3D software tells you how long an object will take to print before it starts printing, which is how the listed print times on the models were obtained. A filament swap just after the raft and platform finish printing allows the two-color look. It's a pain because you have to pay attention in order to catch it at just the right moment, but it's really worth it for a nice classroom model.

Step-by-step instructions for adding custom text to a .stl model: The difficult part about this print for me was getting the text onto the model. In particular, I wanted to find a method that uses only free software, so that my students would all be able to follow the same method at home and in class. Tinkercad has letters you can add, but spacing them out correctly is a challenge and you only have one rather blocky font choice. You can import .svg files into Tinkercad but it turns out that for some reason Tinkercad cannot recognize text/fonts in .svg files, and that when it does import, sometimes the holes in the letters don't come out right.  You can write simple .svg files by hand in a text editor without too much trouble, but Tinkercad won't recognize anything you put in a "text" command in that .svg file. There are online conversion sites for turning .pdf files into .svg, but that seemed to be a pain and I could not get it to work reliably without Adobe Illustrator, which is not free. After much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments I finally stumbled across the following FREE solution:

1. Type the text you desire with the font tool in an Inkscape document.
2. Save the document as an .eps file, and make sure that "convert texts to paths" is checked.
3. Close the file ("close without saving" message is fine; choose that).
4. From within Inkscape, open the .eps file (press "ok" without changing settings).
5. Save again, this time as a "plain .svg" file (not an Inkscape .svg file).
6. From Tinkercad, use "import" to import your .svg text onto your Workplane.

Voilà, we have tricked Tinkercad into accepting our text by making Inkscape wipe out its "textiness" and converting to an .eps path description of the text, then back to .svg format.

Day 26 - Afinia tool holder

The Afinia H-Series 3D printer comes with a very nice set of tools, some of which are very sharp and difficult to store safely. Today we used Tinkercad to design a tool holder that hangs inside the box that holds our gloves, tape, and other printing accessories.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day26_afiniatools.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/3SQCg6zMW3H-day-26-afinia-tool-holder
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:154469

Settings: MakerWare "low" is sufficient but pretty rough for this model.  On that setting the print takes 2 hours and 47 minutes. No raft is needed.

Technical notes: In MakerBot's translucent filament the roughness doesn't show much, but with something opaque like their yellow filament the low-resolution defects for this model are more obvious. I had some trouble with the first part of this print not sticking to the build plate, so I added a very small, short "distraction cylinder" just off to the southwest corner of the model before slicing. This shifted the non-sticking problem to the cylinder and away from the model itself.

Day 25 - Dominos

My son has been watching a lot of domino-toppling videos. Turns out dominos are kind of expensive - but pretty much the easiest thing ever to model in Tinkercad.  We made standard-sized 1 7/8 x 15/16 x 1/4 inch dominoes.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day25_dominos.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/adYykgAGSpg-day-25-dominos
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:153971

Settings: On the Replicator 2, MakerWare low with no raft. On the Afinia, 3D sofware on .3mm fast with a raft.

Technical notes:  It works best if you print these so that the long skinny sides are at the top and bottom, since those are the sides that will come out the roughest.  This makes the large front and back very clean but also allows the dominos to lie smoothly when you are using them.  We tried making a few variations of dominos with gaps and holes to use less plastic, but nothing was as fast to print or as stable to use as a plain old rectangular solid.

Day 24 - Afinia fan grate

The Afinia H-Series is wonderful but I wish there was a cover for its exposed fan.  It doesn't hurt to touch it but when small kids are around it is better to have it covered.  Today's design is based on the bottom half of jlark's Extruder Fan Duct on Thingiverse.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day24_afiniafan.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/iyj3Pi3FNQ9-day-24-afinia-fan-grate
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:153524

Settings: Afinia 3D software at .25mm fast settings, print time of about 29 minutes.

Day 23 - Menger coasters

It's hard to 3D-print a Level 3 Menger sponge.  But it isn't hard to print a slice of one, and it makes for a decent coaster.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day23_mengercoaster.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/kETD0Hz44gY-day-23-menger-coaster
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:153046

Settings:  Afinia MakerWare at .3mm resolution, fast setting, with a raft, in about 34 minutes.

Technical notes:  With the Afinia and settings as above, this model prints a raft in layers 1-7, the green base in layers 8-10, and the white Menger slice in rows 11-13.  You can pause the Afinia 3D software and switch the filament color at the start of row 11.  In the picture only the closest coaster was printed that way; the other two coasters were thinner with less rows in both the Menger and base layers.  It looks a lot better with more layers.

Stuff you might want to change: You can print these without the colored backgrounds, if you don't really care much about your table and just want coasters for fun.

Day 22 - 3D Stars

Although this blog is for stuff I make at home, if you are a teacher then you know that home and work are essentially the same thing, especially when you are grading exams.  It's the season for that first calculus exam, and to reward the students with B or higher grades I made some 3D stars.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day22_3dstar.stl

Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/9F4HBo22TMx-day-22-3d-star

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:152528

Settings: The clear ones were made with a Replicator 2 on MakerWare "low" setting, with 10 stars taking just 34 minutes.  The blue ones were made with an Afinia H-Series on their 3D sofware's .2mm setting, and otherwise default settings and "normal" speed, with 9 stars taking 56 minutes.  To be fair, MakerWare's "low" setting is a .3 mm setting and comparable to Afinia's "fast" on that resolution.

Technical notes:  I did not have good luck printing full stellated dodecahera at this size, which is why I cut off the top and bottom.  This allows much better adherence to the build platform.  In the end I think this is actually better because they look much more like stars.   The stellated dodecahedra came from Mathematica's PolyhedronData command. Teacher note: alas, the picture above overestimates the number of B-and-above grades on my first calculus exam by 200 percent.  

Day 21: Tri-Koch box

Today I wanted to test out the "shell" setting on the Afinia, so we printed the bottom half of the "trikoch" file from hakalan's Scripted Vases collection on Thingiverse.  It is even more beautiful in person than in this picture, although it is very sharp at the top corners!

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day21_trikochbox.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/8SEc1Gjr3bt-day-21-tri-koch-box
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:47563

Settings: Afinia "normal" speed with .2mm resolution, <10% for external supports, and "shell" setting checked.  I stopped the print before it finished so it would not make the roof layers.

Technical notes: When I imported hakalan's trikoch.stl file into the Afinia 3D software it had unfixable normals on the inside of the vase.  Autofix did not repair, and printing with "unsolid model" checked led to it printing a solid model.  I didn't try printing with "unsolid model" unchecked, though - perhaps that would have worked.  Instead I imported into Tinkercad, which made the model solid.  I don't know why that happens but in this case it actually helped me!  Now exporting from Tinkercad and into the Afinia 3D software worked fine, and I printed using the "shell" setting, stopping before the end to leave the print open.   Math note: The original file name has "koch" in it because its shape is based on the famous Koch snowflake curve (although we stopped the print before it took on its usual hexagonal shape, to keep a more triangular theme).

Day 20 - Lattice box

Okay, because of yesterday we now have a hundred thin rings to keep track of, so today we built BozarthPrime's Dice Box, with the top and the lip for the top removed.

Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/exMLHD7DgC6-day-20-lattice-box
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:47445

Settings: MakerWare "low" with no raft and no supports.  Very nice to have a print with an open lattice that needs no support material at all!

Technical note: As you can see in the picture, there is some threading between the diagonal rungs of the lattice as printed on the Replicator 2.  We also tried printing this on the Afinia (with "helper disks" at the corners) but couldn't keep it from using supports (even with "<10 degrees" selected, for some reason).

Day 19 - 100 point counters

My son wants to save up for something with his allowance and chore money, which we do on a point system.  When he saves up 100 points he will have enough saved up, so we made 100 thin rings so he can visually track how close he is to his goal.  This is the real reason we printed the rocket yesterday; the rings are sized to fit around the rocket and so that 100 rings fill up the rocket length entirely.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day19_100points.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/bIfs8dXczdz-day-19-100-point-counters
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:151036

Settings:  MakerBot "low" can print 15 of these rings in 30 minutes.

Technical notes: The vertical space we wanted to fill on the rocket was 170 mm, so we needed each ring to take up 1.7 mm of space.  Making them each 1.7 mm tall did *not* do this.  Surprisingly, due to the resolution we were printing with and the fact that the rings don't sit exactly flush with each other, we had to cut these rings all the way down to 1.1 mm tall in order to get 100 of them to fill up 170 mm of vertical space.