Printin’ and Playin’ Livestock Uprising Part 1

Livestock Uprising was one of the games at GenCon that really caught my attention. After all, escalation of resource gathering with an endgame where your forces Voltron together to for a giant super unit, how does that not appeal? However it’s not available just yet unless you want to do it yourself a bit, which I’m okay with. But I …

All made of hinges

The thing about the board/case for TARDIS Run is it relies on embedded hinges that have a mere half millimeter of space between them. If your 3d printer is putting out to much plastic, perhaps because you upgraded to makerware and haven’t adjusted the feedstockmultiplier setting in the configuration files yet, you end up filing those gaps so that your hinges …

Scanning with a Kinect part 2

Link to part 1. In my continued effort to scan with the Kinect I got a spinning chair at a second hand store so I could mount the Kinect stationary while I spin my kids around to perform the scan. How did it work? Pretty good for the kids who can hold still while I spin them around slowly. For …

Third and Fourth segments on 3D Printing Today

Episode 47 of 3D Printing Today podcast features not 1 but 2 segments featuring me. http://threedprintingtoday.libsyn.com/ The segments are about precisely modeling using tricks like typing in the amount you want to move and using the Properties panel (N) and modeling without supports which I more or less covered before.

GenCon report

GenCon was a… singular experience. I’ve never been to a convention of any kind before. But when Just Game offered to let me man their booth for part of the con I decided “Why not? Maybe I could hand out some business cards and maybe drum up some side business.” I didn’t really know how huge GenCon was when I …

Scanning with a Kinect part 1

With the Kinect 2 coming out, that means I can finally afford some sort of 3D scanner. Yup, the original Kinect is now cheap enough that I can get one. The Kinect isn’t the best scanner out there, the original Kinect even less so. But it’s cheap. If you’re thinking of getting a Kinect for XBox 360 you’ll need an …

Prepairing for GenCon

I apologize for the folks who’s feathers were ruffled by my last post. My comments were meant purely in the context of people experiencing 3D printing from the outsize. But by those of us with 3D printers having the ability to make a custom widget to solve our problems is the most exciting part about 3D printing, and definitely not …

Functional prints are boring

Lately I’ve been hearing this same refrain in a number of different voices: If 3D printing is supposed to be so great, how come all anyone ever prints is stupid stuff? I’m sorry that giving hands to children where making an expensive prosthetic they’re going to grow out of just isn’t practical isn’t enought for you. It’s too bad you’re tired …

Chessbot wins again!

The winners of the PinShape Kids’ Toy Design Contest are out, and in first place is… The Chessbot transforming robot chess set. I was rooting for the Modwheels or Cybot, but I guess you can’t beat an old classic. For winning I’ll be receiving a Cintiq tablet, a copy of ZBrush, credits for professional 3D prints from sculpeo, and a …