People who know I’ve won ask me “What are you going to print first?” as tho I haven’t thought about it yet. Oh, I’ve thought about it. In fact I’ve made a list and I’ve categorized the items on that list as “Useful”, “Fun”, “Pretty”, and “Project”. Useful things are the things that I want to fulfill a specific need. …
PCWorld featured my chess set
Getting mentioned on Makerbot’s blog was cool, but probably inevitable. Getting noticed by Makezine was neat because I saw it in my news feed myself. I needed someone else to point out to me Gizmoto’s coverage. That was awesome. But PCWorld may be the highest profile mention to date. PCWORLD! I don’t know, that’s like… a real publication with print …
Other things I’d like to sell…
By my estimations my Makerbot is a month away. Can you smell the anticipation on my breath? I’m not a businessman by nature. I’m not opposed to the idea, it’s just that I’ve never got the hang of it. But lately I’ve been making some pretty cool things that people say they would be willing to pay for, so I’m …
SwampCastle blog
I ran across this one when organizing what I was going to print first on my makerbot. Thingiverse users lalbritton made a really cool Ideal Harmonic Transformer, which is something cool to a math nerd like me, and mentioned her blog on a post. Her designs are functional but also beautiful. Check her out.http://swampcastle.blogspot.com/I like when I find a blogger …
$20 for a 2″ robot statue?
I really want to make a post about how paying $17 to upwards to $170 for a statue of a robot, even a custom made one, is a rip off. But that’s the pitfalls of custom 3D printing. Even something simple, if you want it now, becomes prohibitively expensive. Overall I think the robot builder idea linked above is just …
Action Chess Development Part 2
You’d have to be looking pretty closely, but I’ve been updating the original Action Chess V2.x model in TinkerCad. I’ve made all the pieces more compact, managed to fit everything inside the size of a normal chess piece, but kept all the relevant connectors. I’ve also improved the artistic side of it. But I’m not uploading the updated designs to …
More relevant to me than I realized at the time
http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2012/02/24/a-matter-of-scales-how-much-can-you-print-with-a-single-1kg-spool/ From this data I can estimate how much material cost goes into a chess set, and use that when calculating what I’ll charge for a set. Thank you makerbot! Of course there’s more than material costs to factor in. There’s the development time for the design. There’s the failed iterations. There’s wear and tear on the machine. Plus there’s …
Spotlight: The New Hobbyist
Chris AKA The New Hobbyist. Uh… yeah. Go check him out. I particularly like his post about “Remembering form when designing for function“. I’m that unique blend of artist and technical mind, tho in many ways I’m a bit like the old amphibious cars. Not really very good at either of it’s dual functions. (Tho I understand the new aquacars …
Counting the cost
As I consider the cost of 3D printing there is a parallel that can be drawn between 2D and 3D printers. Have you ever considered the cost of the pages that come off your 2D printer? Most people don’t (probably for the best). But if you were to, how would you calculate it? A decent inkjet printer costs around $200. …
Action Chess Set Development Part 1
So apparently Gizmoto “…hope[s] that Larson decides to one day print these en masse and sell them on Etsy.” What a great idea! I’ve already toyed with the idea of selling my models through shapeways, but shapeways is kinda expensive for cheap little novelty items. Right now shapeways would want $40-$50 per side for the action chess set, and I’d …