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Explorations in 3D printing + growing wearable = Xuedi Chen’s Invasive Growth! We’ve been curiously following along on instagram for some time now… and the project is now live! I love that it’s “…inspired by my fascination with cordyceps, a fungal parasite that attacks arthropods. Once infected, the fungus slowly takes control of the insect both mentally and physically. Before the insect dies, the fungus makes it climb high onto a branch and grip on, giving it an advantageous place to spread spores. Once the insect is dead, the cordyceps protrudes out, breaking through the exoskeleton.” And the final pieces play with moss growing on wearable neck/head pieces… imagine a day when you need to water your jewelry regularly? Take a peek at the process and details on the next page!
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Melbourne artist, Valissa Butterworth, aka The Mod Collective’s porcelain pieces are such a beautiful splash of colors created by a thoughtful mix of 3D printing and hand moulded/cast colored porcelain. They remind me of Maria White Mebane’s pieces… the porcelain which creates such an unusual and lovely glow when illuminated. As Butterworth explains - “My porcelain tableware is a fusion of technology and traditional ceramic techniques. Each concept is developed using Design software then printed on 3D printers in various mediums. From here the pieces are moulded and cast by hand using coloured porcelain. The porcelain is coloured using raw pigment at the slip stage, should you chip a piece you will not see the telltale white body you would get with coloured glaze. This process allows me to achieve a rich bold colour range not attainable with glaze. Having said this I am now using coloured glaze on a small number of pieces to highlight the texture and pattern and add another contrasting element to the range. This process also appeals to those who prefer the feel of fully glazed pieces. Each piece is made by myself in the studio, the result is a collection of beautifully unique pieces that retain the small marks of the hand made process.” They look absolutely stunning in pictures - and i can only dream up the possible color/glaze/pattern combinations you could create with her custom options! Take a peek at more closeups on the next page!
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Here’s the latest from our London based editor, Justine Aw, sharing her discoveries at the first London 3D Printshow - she came back with lots of pics, and our NOTlabs director, Shawn Sims will help explain it all below!
We’ve been following 3D printing closely as it picks up momentum faster than ever the last year… I made my first 3D print back in 2006 at Pratt, and have been fascinated since. We printed the F.U.C.K. Adapters with an Objet which uses a method called Stereolithography, also known as SLA. This particular process uses a photosensitive resin or liquid that is hardened into place by ultraviolet light. Recently we unboxed the Makerbot Replicator which uses a technique called Fused Deposition Modeling or FDM. It works by squeezing out a thin heated filament, usually plastic, which hardens once extruded. These two methods make up nearly all of the DIY and desktop 3D printers that you have been seeing. This week has been quite the week for 3D printing, with both the Shapeways Factory of the Future opening in NYC as well as the London 3D Printshow!
The 3D Printshow is a unique mix between a hardware trade show and an art gallery of selected works from sculptors, jewellery designers, animation and interactive artists all working with 3D form. We even got to see the much anticipated Form 1 3D Printer from the Kickstarter superstar FormLabs of MIT in person. It is great to see how they are bringing the art of 3D printing to the masses, helping it transcend being a prototyping/manufacturing level tool… perhaps it could truly become a reality for every home to have one much like an ink printer in the near future. Check out the variety of 3D printers and art pieces we saw on the next page!
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This super picture loaded post is made possible by our awesome friends, artists and designers, Che-Wei Wang & Taylor Levy of CW&T, who went and brought back lots of pics from the opening of Shapeways’ new factory in Long Island!
Shapeways has been on the forefront of creating what many have dubbed “the kinkos of 3D printing” - the go to spot to send your files and objects will appear at your doorstep! You can see the unboxing of our interlocking cubes here, and it’s super exciting to see in the pics on the next page where our prints will be coming from in no time!
As Taylor shared with us, “The space is HUGE, as you’ll see in the pics. It is empty now, but it will be awesome down the line. They are prepping for 50 industrial 3d printing machines. You can see the bright green spray painted plots on the floor to show where machines will go. They are running a couple machines right now in small adjacent spaces, doing strong white and flexible and FUD until the new machines arrive. They spoke a bit about interfacing with the community, giving tours, and workshops. And of course how important it was for them to pick a spot to open that was close to the majority of their customers. Both to lower their carbon footprint, but also to be close to the community. I hope that happens. Our dream of course is to be able to send them a file and then bike over from our studio (it’s 10 mins away) to go pick it up! Mayor Bloomberg was there to speak and cut the ribbon. There was lots of talk about how exciting it is to bring in a new wave of hi-tech manufacturing into the city.” Exciting stuff!!! Take a peek throughout the space on the next page… we can only dream (and hope to pop back) about what it will look like when completely filled with 3D printers!
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3D printed light bulbs that play with the way light is distributed… a 3D printed toy that’s responsive to a little girl with its digital eyes… LEDs embedded right into your 3D print while printing… 3D printable sensors, buttons, and switches… even a mobile 3D display created by projecting on internal bubbles within a 3D printed model. These are all possible now ~ and demonstrated in the latest project to come from Disney Research Pittsburgh - “Printed Optics” by Karl D.D. Willis, Eric Brockmeyer, Scott E. Hudson, Ivan Poupyrev.
Changing perspectives on how 3D prints works, this project both interrupts the printing process (to insert electronics), and also plays with the capabilities of the 3D printing itself to manipulate the way light behaves within the final print, turning a 3D print right out of the printer into “unique display surfaces, novel illumination techniques, custom optical sensors, and robust embedded components can be digitally fabricated for rapid, high fidelity, customized interactive devices.” While the material they are printing in isn’t your makerbot/consumer level printing (yet!) - this combination of UV cured resin and a special completely clear resin designed specifically for optical uses, creates the ability to create “light pipes” which function much like fiber optics. The possibilities with the direction of this research add a whole new level of interactivity to 3D prints! (Read the full paper here!) See them in action in the video and images on the next page…
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It has been amazing to witness the development of the Free Universal Construction Kit that NOTlabs’ own Shawn Sims and our friend Golan Levin created ~ and even more incredible to see the eye opening discussions it has sparked far beyond the interoperability of toy sets, but on patent/IP law, the future of 3D printing, open source physical forms, and much more around the globe… and now it has brought them (and me along with them!) to Linz, Austria for the Ars Electronica Festival, where the project has received the Award of Distinction in Hybrid Art from the Prix Ars Electronica. In addition to the award, Golan will be speaking tomorrow on the opening day of the festival, Shawn will be speaking on Sunday, and for the first time, the Free Universal Construction Kit can be seen in its entirety along with a selection of playful assemblages we created demonstrating various toys playing nicely together at the OK “Offenes Kulturhaus” CyberArts12 Exhibition! (Big thank you to the kind folks at Instructables for their support of the project! They produced the full set of pieces showing at CyberArts12!)
So, we’ve just spent the last day setting up the display for the exhibition ~ and i’m thrilled to give you an early sneak peek before tomorrow’s opening!
p.s.
If you need a refresher on the project: Toys (specifically Lego, Lincoln Logs, Duplo, Fischertechnik, K’nex, Krinkles, Tinkerytoy, Zome, Zoob, Gears Gears Gears, etc) + 3D printer + Free Universal Construction Kit = MORE ways to play with your toys! And all of the pieces are available for download (open source!) on Thingiverse, which you can either print on your own 3D Printer, or send them to a 3D printing service (like Shapeways!)
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Current desk/fidget toy obsession - interlocked 3D printed CUBES! Particularly the dodecahedron one… they are mesmerizing, and just fragile enough they make you feel overly careful with them… yet its so tempting to try to bust your way into the structure just to prove there are more of the same shape within…
Anyhow, late one night i was wandering through all of shapeways and couldn’t resist impulse buying the Dod’net by Magic and the mini Interlocked Cubes Demo… it seemed like a good excuse to get a feel for their polished alumide! Also, it was a fun way to get a peek at their packaging ~ you certainly get a BIG fragile air bubble packed box for the two little pieces which are ziplocked inside… See the unboxing and details on the next page!
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Realitat’s Microsonic Landscapes are “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.” According to Creative Applications it is created with Processing and printed with Makerbot. Each object represents an album, but it’s unclear to me how tracks are represented… perhaps each ring? or does it all just spiral flow together to the center? or outwards? Also curious, what are the axes representing? Anyhow, it’s a pretty visualization of the albums, somehow… take a peek at more details on the next page.
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It has been quite the (educational) adventure joining our NOTlabs director, Shawn Sims, and Golan Levin as they launched their Free Universal Construction Kit project… from learning about toys and 3d modeling, to the different 3D printing techniques and materials, to Intellectual Property and Patent law! One of the most exciting and interesting aspect of the project to me personally has been what the average person without access to top of the line manufacturing machines can really 3D print at home, and how does it work? Thanks to the amazing folks at MakerBot, today we got to find out through their Replicator (with dual extruders)!
Anyone can download the variety of Free Universal Construction Kit pieces on Thingiverse, send them to their 3D printer, and shortly after have toy adapters to play with! Of course depending on the resolution of the printer and the printing technique, some pieces will work better than others, so it was thrilling tonight to get to try them out on the MakerBot (the originals were made on an Objet) ~ on the next page you can see a full unboxing and the preparation of the MakerBot Replicator as well as our first “home” printing of some Free Universal Construction Kit toys! (And yes, this is the kind of project that has kept us busy in the NOTlabs till 4:30am!)
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Toys (specifically Lego, Lincoln Logs, Duplo, Fischertechnik, K’nex, Krinkles, Tinkerytoy, Zome, Zoob, Gears Gears Gears, etc) + 3D printer + Free Universal Construction Kit = MORE ways to play with your toys! Picture the crazy structures you (or your kid’s) wildest imagination can flourish in as every piece can connect to every other piece… or how many more toys you will need to buy to fully utilize the Free Universal Construction Kit’s capabilities…
While the monster of a Universal Adapter Brick was quietly launched at Golan Levin’s Eyecode solo show at UCI’s Beall Center for Art + Technology a few months ago, it’s exciting to see the rest of the kit finally available! So, freshly launched this morning from Golan Levin at F.A.T. Lab and our own head of NOTlabs, Shawn Sims comes the Free Universal Construction Kit. It is “a collection of nearly 80 adapter bricks that enable complete interoperability between ten popular children’s construction toys. By allowing any piece to mate with any other, the Kit encourages totally new forms of intercourse between otherwise closed systems — enabling radically hybrid Constructivist play and the creation of heretofore impossible designs.”
You can see the full chart of all pieces, download the full .stl pack, find just the piece you need on Thingiverse, and even watch the 80’s style advert for Free Universal Construction Kit on the next page!
Next… if you have a 3D printer, and have fun toys, AND print out some pieces… i’d love to see what you (and/or your kids) create with them!!! Please share pics!!!
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Happy Holidays! 2013 is around the corner, and we’re finishing up this year with more of our annual 
There was SO much to see at the Venice Biennale ~ as usual, so much running around and so many details to take in… so beyond the features we’ve shared with you thus far (
