Day 92 - Weeping Angel from Dr. Who

Great, now we're too terrified to take this out of the printer. This beautiful and horrifying model is fantasygraph's Dr. Who Weeping Angel on Thingiverse. We printed it in honor of the Day of the Doctor, and in particular for the joy of seeing David Tennant play the Doctor just one more time.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day92_weepingangel.stl
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:54833

Settings: MakerWare .2mm/standard settings in about 3 hours.

Stuff to change: The robe collides with the wings in the back of the model. Possibly this will be fixed later by fantasygraph?

Day 91 - Truncated Icosahedron

We didn't have time to make this one earlier, so here it is now. A truncated icosahedron (Buckyball/soccerball/football depending on who you are). I made the snaps really tight so this model would stay together very solidly. If you want to take it apart over and over then I recommend loosening the snaps in Tinkercad.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day91_truncatedicosahedron.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/jUqMMtH0GmA-tiles-for-truncated-icosahedron
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:54743

Settings: MakerWare .3mm/low filled four build plates and took nearly four hours. From an earlier test I believe that the snap tiles also work well scaled down to maybe 60% size, so you can make a smaller one if you want to try to speed things up a bit.

Technical notes: To make the snaps looser, rotate or use the "Workplane" in Tinkercad so that you can make the snap tines larger. This model was tight enough to hurt my hands when assembling it but it is very sturdy. A small amount of planning or moving things around is needed to make sure that the 2-snaps and 3-snaps fit together at the end of the object when everything closes up.

Day 90 - Stellated Octahedron

And finally, the last of the set of models from my entry to the Makerbot Academy Math Manipulative Challenge on Thingiverse. This model shows that we can use the individual snap tiles to make non-convex polyhedra. Here is the stellated octahedron:

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day90_stellatedoctahedron.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/i7RhQW0w6z6-tiles-for-stellated-octahedron
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:185859

Settings: The tiles are optimized to work with the low/.3mm MakerWare setting on a Replicator 2.

Day 89 - Icosidodecahedron

Today, the simplest Archimedian solid using triangles and pentagons, the icosidodecahedron:

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day89_icosidodecahedron.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/9rjPDpql1vO-tiles-for-icosidodecahedron
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:185859

Settings: The tiles are optimized to work with the low/.3mm MakerWare setting on a Replicator 2.

Day 88 - Truncated Octahedron

Yesterday's model was the simplest Archimedian solid with square and triangle faces. Today we have the simplest semi-regular polyhedron with square and hexagon faces, the truncated octahedron:

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day88_truncatedoctahedron.stl

Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/l19z2AjEssx-tiles-for-truncated-octahedron

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:185859

Settings: The tiles are optimized to work with the low/.3mm MakerWare setting on a Replicator 2.

Day 87 - Cuboctahedron

To get more flexibility constructing polyhedra we can use individual snap tiles instead of pre-arranged hinged nets. This also allows us to make nice two-color semi-regular polyhedra, such as this cuboctahedron:

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day87_cuboctahedron.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/58BQvUFOlo8-tiles-for-cuboctahedron
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:185859

Settings: The tiles are optimized to work with the low/.3mm MakerWare setting on a Replicator 2.

Technical notes: The sizes of the snap tines is crucial to these models. Tighter snaps make very sturdy models that are difficult to snap together but very solid when finished. Looser snaps are better for models you want to experiment with, taking apart and putting together over and over. Finding that sweet spot in the middle where the tiles snap together easily but still sturdily is the key, and that spot varies depending on the angles in the model and how the edges meet between tiles.

Day 86 - Rectangular Rhombohedron

The last of the polyhedral nets so far is for a rectangular rhombohedron:

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day86_rhombohedron.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/4QmyBzqKqlL-hinged-rhombohedron
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:185859

Settings: Low/.3mm MakerWare settings on a Replicator 2 in one hour and 10 minutes.

Technical notes: These fit together to tile 3-dimensional space, so if you print a lot of them trying to get them to work then you can test that out. Just saying. It was hard to get the last bit of the model to work correctly so I have a lot of these.

Day 85 - Hexagonal Prism

Of course there are many polyhedra that aren't one of the five Platonic solids that we just posted about. For example, prisms. Here is a hexagonal prism made out of a folded hinged net:

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day85_hexagonalprism.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/0sl3FylfUsi-hinged-hexagonal-prism
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:185859

Settings: Low/.3mm MakerWare settings on a Replicator 2 in an hour and 25 minutes.

Technical notes: In order to get the hexagons to fit correctly I had to make them larger than one would expect. I guess a lot of space gets eaten up with the hinges and angles somehow.

Day 84 - Hinged Icosahedron

The final Platonic solid in the set of models we entered into the MakerBot Academy Math Manipulatives Challenge was the icosahedron.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day84_icosahedron.stl

Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/iBwf0NJMgfY-hinged-icosahedron

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:185859

Settings: MakerWare .3mm/low on a Replicator 2 in two and a half hours.

Technical notes: This is the hardest hinged net in the set to print, because it takes up so much of the build platform; I often have trouble with prints of models that go too far into one of the corners. 

Stuff you might want to change: This particular model is a bit loose, so you might want to make the edge snaps a bit tighter if you want a sturdy model. On the other hand if you like being able to easily push the model between net form and 3D form, then the looseness might be an advantage for you.

Day 83 - Hinged Dodecahedron

Of all the hinged polyhedral nets we made for the Makerbot Academy Math Manipulative Challenge, the dodecahedron came out the best. It just hit the sweet spot of angle and snap closer tightness. You can even see a video of 8-year-old C assembling it in under 30 seconds.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day83_dodecahedron.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/0tzDh8wA7RP-hinged-dodecahedron
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:185859

Settings: MakerWare .3mm/low on a Replicator 2 in an hour and 45 minutes, printed in one piece with hinges fully assembled.

Day 82 - Hinged Octahedron

Working our way through the five Platonic solids that were included in my entry for the Makerbot Academy Math Manipulative Challenge, today's blog item is a hinged octahedron.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day82_octahedron.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/fJxQSsf4YRW-hinged-octahedron
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:185859

Settings: Replicator 2 MakerWare .3mm/low settings with no raft or support, in an hour and 15 minutes.

Day 81 - Hinged Cube

So I guess my reward for working night and day on the Makerbot Academy Math Manipulative Challenge for a week is that I can now post each model separately on this blog, which should take care of a week or two of my year of prints. Today, the cube:

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day81_cube.jpg
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/iJ8L0vo1gTm-hinged-cube
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:185859

Settings: Makerware .3mm/low in 55 minutes with no raft or supports, on a Replicator 2. Prints as one piece with six squares hinged in place to make a net that folds into a cube.

Day 80 - Hinged Tetrahedron

Over the next several posts here I'll put up pictures and files of the objects in the set of polyhedral models I made for the Makerbot Academy Math Manipulative Challenge. Back on Day 63 I tried to make a folding net for a tetrahedron with hinges in a center-cylinder-surrounded-by-open-cylinder design. The cylinder design turned out to be unreliable and finicky so I made new hinges based on cones and cone-shaped holes, and added some snaps to the border edges.  Here's the new hinged tetrahedron:

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day80_tetrahedron.jpg
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/40G0KzRmvFC-hinged-tetrahedron
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:185859

Settings: Makerware .3mm/low in 35 minutes on a Replicator 2. The entire model prints in one flat hinged piece with no raft or supports, ready to fold up and snap together as soon as you remove it from the build platform.

Technical notes: It took a lot of fiddling to get the snaps to be the correct size. If you want to change them to be tighter or looser, you can edit the model on Tinkercad before printing. The simple tetrahedron does a good job of staying together regardless of how loose the snaps are, but for more complicated objects with wider angles, the snap width becomes crucial.

Special thanks: Alexis Stevens came up with the idea of making polyhedral nets for K-12 educational models and helped with hinge/construction discussions that led to the way that these models were constructed. Thank you Alexis!

Day 79 - Cat treat D20

For our cats to bat around and get treats out of, a D20 Cat treat toy by hroncok on Thingiverse.

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:53523

Settings: MakerWare .3mm/low.

Day 78 - Creeper party

The rest of the Minecraft party favors...

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:53522

Settings: Same as yesterday except that some of these were printed on the Afinia. The Afinia ones had support that was more difficult to remove.

Day 77 - Posable creeper

In need of some party favors for an upcoming Minecraft birthday party for C, today we tried out Conseils' Minecraft Creeper with Movable Head on Thingiverse.

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:53338

Settings: Makerware low/.3mm works fine, but the connector tab needed to be snipped a bit thinner to work. But then it works and the head really turns!

Day 76 - Koch snowflakes

It's getting cold and I think it was supposed to snow this weekend. It didn't, so we made some more snowflakes to follow up on Day 70 and Day 71. This time gescandon's mathematically-inspired Koch snowflakes on Thingiverse.

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:53212

Settings: MakerWare low/.3mm prints one of these snowflakes in about 6 minutes, with two layers. They are just thick enough to be sturdy and good for hanging.

Day 75 - Helicopter challenge rings

Our son recently saved up his allowance to buy a small remote-control helicopter, so today we made some rings for him to try to knock over and pick up with the copter.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day75_helirings.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/iO6Lqo7BN18-day-75-helicopter-challenge-rings
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:181495

Settings: MakerWare low/.3mm, I think it was under 30 minutes for all three together.

Stuff you might want to change: The medium-sized one is so light that it knocks over from the wind of the helicopter. Next time a larger base would be nice.

Day 74 - Decasphericons

Today we printed and assembled the two types of decasphericon models from chriskpalmer's Sphericons on Thingiverse.  We used Gorilla Glue to install 3mm Neodymium Rare Earth Super Magnets in the holes of the model and are impatiently waiting until tomorrow to be able to snap the two pieces together and roll the thing around!

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:52970

Settings: Two halves at original size with Makerware .3mm/low, in 3 hours and 10 minutes.

Technical notes: The Gorilla Glue seems to melt the PLA a little bit, but so far only to the extent that the tweezers we were using had some red on them after using them to insert the magnets into the glue.

Fun travel fact: You can play with lots of models like this in the Twist 'n' Roll exhibit on "Floor -1" of MoMath, the National Museum of Mathematics, in New York City.

UPDATE: On the first try, the magnets did not work very well for me. Two reasons:  First, I think I put too much Gorilla Glue over the magnets and this decreased their power. Second, of course I didn't pay any attention to the directions of the magnets and this makes the halves only stick together weakly, and only in certain rotational positions.  :(

Day 73 - CGR Pontoon boat, full size

Our son printed his LEGO team's pontoon boat in full size today. Enough room for five minifigs, and it floats! The minifigs sit on LEGO-style bumps to stay in place. The color changes come from filament swaps and drawing on the filament with Sharpie before it went through the extruder.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day73_CGRpontoonfull.stl
Tinkercad link:  https://tinkercad.com/things/0qJ1rxtS2rl-day-69-cgr-pontoon-boat
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:179803

Settings: MakerWare low/.3mm on a Replicator 2 in 3 hours and 10 minutes, plus time for filament swaps.

Day 72 - Carabiner

In the interest of attaching things to other things, today we printed briscoe28's s-caribiner from Thingiverse. It's interesting how the flexible bit works; this is a very nice design, which I guess is why it was a "Featured Thing" on Thingiverse today!

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:52773

Settings: Afinia low/.3mm in just over 10 minutes.

UPDATE: While it seems as if it would be fairly sturdy for normal light use, this *will* break if you fiddle with it too much.  Wondering if printing at 200% would make it sturdier...

Day 71 - Snowflakes, part 2

More snowflakes!

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day71_snowflakes2.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/3tb6CmIKKhg-day-71-snowflakes-part-2
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:178379

Settings: MakerWare low/.3mm to get these in one layer.

Day 70 - Snowflakes, part 1

Lots of tiny snowflakes for some kind of winter/holiday use.  The snowflake designs are from a vector-graphics snowflake patterns file on Zezu. In future days we will make these larger and add holes/hooks so they can be used as ornaments.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day70_snowflakes1.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/ij29eWQSLdz-day-70-snowflakes-part-1
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:178379

Settings:  MakerWare low/.3mm makes these one layer thick, which makes printing very fast (about 3 minutes per snowflake).

Technical notes: Today's print is a simple example showing how to import a picture you find online into Tinkercad, via Inkscape. Tinkercad can import .svg graphics files, but those can be hard to find - and even when you do find them, sometimes Tinkercad does not import them well (for example filling in concave areas). The method below doesn't always work for every type of picture, so if you have trouble getting it to work you might try starting over with a different source image.

Step-by-step instructions for trying to import a 2D graphic into Tinkercad:

1. Find a graphic that you wish to use. Many formats will work; in this example the file started out as a .jpg.  If you can find an .svg file you might be able to jump right to step 6 below. If doing that doesn't seem to work then come back here and do the rest of the steps.

2. Open the graphic in Inkscape.

3. Select the graphic with the arrow tool.

4. From the "Path" menu, choose "Trace Bitmap". There are some options you can set, but if your image is relatively simple with sharp lines, you should be able to leave the options as they are. In this example we also checked "Invert Image" so that the white snowflakes would get traced out as the main objects. In general, try it without this checked and if you get the negative of what you want, then go back and invert the image and try again.  Click "OK" and then close the "Trace Bitmap" window.

5. From the "File" menu, choose "Save As", and from the list of filetype choices in the lower right of that window, select "Plain SVG". Be sure to change the extension of your filename to .svg, and to note where the file is being saved on your computer, before clicking "Save".

6. From within Tinkercad, open the "Import" tab in the right margin and select your .svg file. It is usually a good idea to import at 30% of the size, since otherwise the image will be gigantic. Click "Import" and then be patient; it can take some time for the file to import, and it may look like a tiny speck for a minute as it finishes loading.

7. You can now use this image however you like in your Tinkercad designs! Be sure to credit the source of the picture when posting online about your object or describing your work.

Day 69 - CGR Pontoon boat

Today our 8-year-old son designed this boat in Tinkercad for an upcoming LEGO competition.  The picture shows the 50% scale model we printed today so full-size minifigs don't fit, but printed at full size there will be places for five LEGO minifigs in sitting position, complete with "bumps" to hold them on.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day69_CGRpontoon.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/0qJ1rxtS2rl-day-69-cgr-pontoon-boat
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:177036

Settings: MakerWare "low" with raft and supports, in about 45 minutes (at 50% size).

Day 68 - Glow sphere #1

I love the look of gavi's Spherical lattice on Thingiverse, but don't have a resin printer to get the beautiful print that they do.  However, their low-res "visualization only" file is small enough to open in Tinkercad, so I sandwiched it between two spherical layers and printed in translucent filament as an LED light cover, for a small table glow lamp.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day68_glowsphere1.stl

Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/hguHLXhHIFt-day-68-glow-sphere-1

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:177017

Settings: MakerWare "low" with raft but no supports, in 2 hours and 46 minutes.

Technical notes: You can think of this "sandwich" as building your own custom infill for the sphere. It worked better than putting the design on the inside or outside, both of which had printing issues. The model is built to fit around a twist-on battery LED assembly I found on amazon.com. You could use your own LED + 2 2032 batteries but it is relatively economical to buy them pre-assembled like this. 

Day 67 - The knot 8_19

The real reason for printing the knot 8_18 yesterday was to compare it to a print of 8_19, the first non-alternating knot in the standard knot table.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day67_knot819.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/icZH9zTcivd-day-67-knot-819/edit
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:175023

Settings: The same MakerWare custom knot-slicing profile used yesterday.

Technical notes: As always, this knot was made in Mathematica using Cantarella data.  Compare this model of 8_19 with the 3D model of 8_18. Can we see something in this optimal 3D configuration of 8_19 that would suggest it has no alternating 2D projections?

Day 66 - The knot 8_18

Our initial reason forgetting a 3D printer was to print mathematical models of knots, so today we go back to our roots and print a model of the knot 8_18 with our new translucent yellow filament:

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day66_knot818.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/9TtZc26k2Rc-day-66-knot-818
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:175021

Settings: MakerWare custom knot-slicing profile used in Day 9 and Day 11, on a Replicator 2.

Technical notes: This knot was made in Mathematica using Cantarella data, as usual. Opening the model in Tinkercad fixes the mesh enough for MakerWare to be able to slice it. You can also further repair the mesh with Meshlab and/or Blender if you need to, but for me just opening in Tinkercad is sufficient to make most of my knots work on the Replicator 2 or the Afinia.  It also gives me a chance to add labels so I can identify the knots later on.  Math people, you probably know why I am printing this and what I am likely to print tomorrow...

Day 65 - Condiment bowl with sharpie stripe!

Same bowl as yesterday, but this time we colored an 8-inch length of the filament with a black Sharpie marker before it went through the machine.  Beautiful stripe, worked perfectly!

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:51971

Day 64 - Condiment bowl

The Condiment Bowl designed by petergross3 in Thingiverse has such a beautiful shape, mixing squares and circles. We had been waiting to print it until our new translucent red filament arrived, and today is that day!

Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:51907

Settings: MakerWare custom profile to get linear infill on the low PLA setting.

UPDATE: A good news/bad news kind of situation... the bowl apparently looked good enough for someone to think it was a regular bowl, but this caused the bowl to end up in the dishwasher. Now it is distorted along one edge, and not so nice. New plan: put the bowl in the dishwasher repeatedly to see what happens!

Day 63 - Tetrahinge

Trying to find a better solution for making polyhedral nets than the folding models from Day 44, today we have a hinged version of a tetrahedron.  The hinges are built to print together, fully assembled, using the "low" setting on a Replicator 2.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day63_tetrahinge.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/29dlcUYxlhU-day-63-tetrahinge
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:173299

Settings: MakerWare "low" setting in some amount of time that I forgot to make note of!

Stuff you might want to change: What I'd really like is to have modular faces that you clip together after printing, since then I could make much larger polyhedra.  Maybe another day...

UPDATE: This is now a "Staff Favorite" at Tinkercad. You're my favorite too, Tinkercad! :)

Day 62 - Quick hex bowl

Couldn't be simpler than this.  Needed a bowl, threw down Marissa's "wedge" shape script in Tinkercad, printed it as a shell on the Afinia.

STL file: http://www.geekhaus.com/makerhome/day62_quickhexbowl.stl
Tinkercad link: https://tinkercad.com/things/9rV054GfyPV-day-62-quick-hex-bowl
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:172764

Settings: Afinia 3D software with .3mm default fast and "shell" setting.  This causes only the bottom, sides, and top to be printed, and I stopped the print just before it got to the roof.

Technical notes: This was also a test of Sain Smart purple filament in the Afinia. It works fine but there are two things to note: First, the print is shiny almost like it was made of PLA instead of ABS. Second, this filament definitely gave off more fumes/smell than the usual Afinia premium and value line filaments. Perhaps I need to change the temperature?