Sorry for the silence lately. I’ve been working on a couple of paid projects that don’t leave me much to talk about and a left thermocouple that’s not working and I don’t know if it’s the thermocouple, the board, or my soldering holding them together. But in the meanwhile…
PinShape’s toy contest is in it’s final day and I’l love your likes on 3 of my designs, one of which is brand new today. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to follow these 3 links and like these designs. You may need to sign up for PinShape if you aren’t already:
ModWheels, CyBot, Handimon. (Optional TARDIS Run, Chessbot and Troke)
I am accepting suggestions for a better name for that last one.
If that’s all you need then go and vote, you have a day from the time this is posted. What follows is some details about each of these project and where they can go.
Each of these designs can easily kick off to a much larger project. If they do kind of depends a number of factors, most notable of which is if anyone else thinks they’re as cool as I do. So, to give you an idea of where these projects are going here’s a little detail about each one:
Handimon
This is a project I started even before I had a 3D printer. As such I’ve never really printed it myself. My one picture of it in reality comes from the one person on Thingiverse who has printed one.
It was inspired by the ventriloquist Señor Wences and the helping hands on Labyrinth. I was also doing a lot with modular rings at the time. I started with the most basic design possible but the plan was to add changeable noses, hair and accessories.
CyBot
When I translated my mascot Cymon into a 3D character I invented a joint system that I knew could be translated to a generic toy system. But there was already modibot, beco blocks and now modio, to name a few. None of these systems are ones I felt I could use regularly myself, but I didn’t want to be in competition with so many already.
Of course danging really nice prizes in front of me is a good way to motivate me to change that position.
There’s a lot more that can still be done with the joint system. I’d like to explore them in a series of animals, dinosaurs, and clip on accessories that can be mix-and-matched with other sets to make cool things. Like a cow that can be combined with the base robot to make a minataur or centaur.
I also want to explore making a set that is more SLS friendly with big holes in it to make it cheaper for services like Sculpteo or Shapeways that can handle a little finer detail but charges by volume.
ModWheels
I really don’t know where this latest project came from. We went to a car show recently and saw some really cool cars including a Model T and a Delorian, so maybe that’s the seed that inspired modular mix-and-match cars. I’ve never been much of a car person myself, but it struck me as a great idea for toys for kids and perfect for this contest. It was a whirlwind getting these three cars modeled and test printed with the associated iterations. I still think they’re an iteration behind, but never mind. IF this takes off there’ll be time to iterate later.
The base set was just going to be the Model T and DeLorian, since those cars represent to me the past and future (I’m a child of the 80s, I can’t help it) but I’d love to explore other iconic and stylish cars throughout the ages like the Studebaker, Edsel, a Cadillac with really big tail fins, some muscle car with the engine sticking out of the hood, and some sort of concept car, whatever will fit into the squashed, over-sized tire style already established. I’m not really a “car guy” so I’d be open to specific suggestions.
So… that’s it. If you want to see more of these let me know.
