The Shapeways Blog: 3D Printing News & Innovation
Entries from January 2011
Saturday, January 29. 2011
Amazing Coverage of the 17x17x17 Over the Top Twisty Puzzle
Congratulations again to Oskar, his 17x17x17 Over the Top Twisty Puzzle has caught the imagination of THOUSANDS of people with coverage on many of the major design, technology and culture blogs including articles on:
Gizmodo by Adrian Covert
CrunchGear by Devin Coldewey
Core77 By Sam Dunne
FastCoDesign by Suzanne Lubarre
NotCot By Rugenius
Makezine by Adam Flaherty
Dvice By Raymond Wong
Ubergizmo By Matthew Chung
Technabob By, Technabob
Adafruit by Johngineer
Vodule By Yong Kim
And many many many many more.... A big thanks to all who wrote about Oskar's amazing achievement ant the thousands of people who spread the word via their personal Facebook and Twitter accounts.
If you have a design that you currently have under wraps that you are ready to launch, contact me duann(at)shapeways.com and we may be able to help you develop a strategy to promote your item online.
Thursday, January 27. 2011
Oskar van Deventer Produces His 17x17x17 and breaks unofficial World Record!!
All of us at Shapeways are excited to announce that our community now includes a world record-breaker. Renowned puzzle designer and long-time Shapeways community member Oskar van Deventer has seen his ambitious 17x17x17 rubiks cube go from a wild idea to a real-life 3D printed puzzle. Congrats Oskar!
Oskar started designing his puzzles as a boy at the age of 12 in the Netherlands. More than 30 years later, he has a reputation as one of the world's most prolific puzzle creators. Oskar first started 3D printing twisty puzzles thanks to Bram Cohen, who began posing challenges to Oskar back in 2008. Today, several of his innovations are being sold in traditional toy stores and lots more are available through 3D printing in his Shapeways Shop. Most recently, Oskar's twisty puzzles have been used as a very original way to propose.
When Oskar heard of the world records being set for twisty puzzles, like the 7x7x7, 9x9x9 and 11x11x11 by Panagiotis Verdes from Greece, he wanted to try his hand at setting a new record himself. With sponsorship from his close friend Claus Wenicker, Oskar set about designing and testing a number of prototypes, and his third attempt was printed successfully with Shapeways. Sorting and dyeing all 1539 pieces took Oskar 10 hours of work, followed by 5 hours of assembling. The result is an oversized (140 millimeter, 5.5 inches) and fully functioning "Over The Top" 17x17x17 puzzle.
Oskar will be in New York City on Saturday Feb. 12th, where he'll be unveiling his "Over the Top" cube.
Read More »
Tuesday, January 25. 2011
Expand your market to sites such as Etsy and eBay
Here is a "treasury" I compiled of 3D printed creations that are currently on Etsy.com (I did shamelessly include one of mine on there
, and no, it's not the home printed moustache hair clip):
Read More »
Monday, January 24. 2011
Ingo Maurer & 3D Printed Lamp Components
A guest post by John Briscella
On a recent trip to Soho this past weekend, ee had a chance to stop by the Ingo Maurer Showroom. Upon entering the shop, I was familiar with most of the designs. Constructions of paper, metal wire and light performing a spectacle of well balanced compositions. Yet, some new favorites (such as his LED table) suggest Maurer’s playfulness with technology.
In the basement den of lamps, amongst the array of creations, was Swingading (above). Seemly fitting to Maurer’s works of paper, Swingading was 3D printed! Well at least the shade and tip.
Read More »
Thursday, January 20. 2011
Sneak Peek of Stainless Steel Cuff Bracelets by Nervous System
Wednesday, January 19. 2011
Romance, With a Twist
It seems as though Shapeways Twisty Puzzle extraordinaire Oskar has recently turned his hand to that of a twisty cupid with more successful marriage proposals accepted via his Gift Cube.
You may remember the story of Matthew and Mindy and their twisty puzzle proposal? They were married on July 31st, 2010 and have re-enacted their Gift-Cube proposal on YouTube.
Since then there have been another two successful proposals via Oskar's Gift Cube and another one soon to be presented. What will she say?
Read More »
Monday, January 17. 2011
Sunday, January 16. 2011
Help Us to Help You with High Res Images
If you would like to have your images included please send them to duann(at)shapeways(dot)com and I will add them to our existing database. You can also post them in the Shapeways Flickr Group where many of the Shapeways community are already sharing images of their items.
As a rule, images need to be at least 300 dpi and 5” x 7” to be suitable for publication.
Also if you include a bio about yourself, your design/art/company practice and product, we may be able to leverage this into an article about you and your designs rather than about Shapeways, it's services and the products it enables.
Read More »
Saturday, January 15. 2011
Robert Schouwenburg interviewed at CES and Shapeways in the New York Times
Robert Schouwenburg, CTO for Shapeways was interviewed by Tony Sklar of bnetTV at the 2011 Showstoppers event held in Las Vegas as part of the Consumer Electronic Show.
Shapeways was also recently featured in another article in the New York Times on The Wow Factor of 3-D Printing by Ashlee Vance
.
Friday, January 14. 2011
3D Printed Skate Boarding Elephant, Of Course
Great to see contemporary art hit 3D-Printing that is not math based or 'as' geeky but more aligned with street and popular culture.
Read More »
Digital Wood Joints - What can you make?
Most designs on Shapeways are printed as one whole piece, but one thing to consider is that if you happen to want a big piece and be able to disassemble it for storage and then use on the go, or for an added artistic aspect, or for when you move and would like to not squish something that's hollow inside, or in order just to jump on the DIY bandwagon, where sometimes the novelty of Doing It Yourself (or at least assembling it yourself) is an added marketing bonus to a product.
Read More »
Thursday, January 13. 2011
We need your help to pick the next Strong & Flexible colors.
The Winter Red is staying until end of February for Valentine's day, and the rest will retire at the end of January. What next batch of colors would you like?
Nancy has made a poll so you can to help us decide on the next batch of colors (deadline to respond is next Wednesday end of day). We have selected a range of colors available from our suppliers, and includes colors we've had available before as options as well. Take a look at the color chart and let us know what colors you would like to see next?We will take a look at your suggestions, do some testing and introduce a new batch of colors as soon as possible.
Also let us know if there are any colors you would like to see as permanent options like Black Strong and Flexible or are you happy to have seasonal and event based colors?
Wednesday, January 12. 2011
White House commissions report on 3-D printers
"Just as personal computers have dramatically changed everyday life, 3-D printers will profoundly affect how products are made, designed and consumed, say Cornell professor Hod Lipson and analyst Melba Kurman in a new report."
A very encouraging report has just been submitted to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Recommendations include:
1. Put a personal manufacturing lab in every school
2. Offer teacher education in basic design and manufacturing technologies in relation to STEM education
3. Create high quality, modular curriculum with optional manufacturing components
4. Enhance after school learning to involve design and manufacturing
5. Allocate federal support for pilot MEPs programs to introduce digital manufacturing to regional manufacturing companies
6. Promote published and open hardware standards and specifications
7. Develop standard file formats for electronic blueprints design files
8. Create a database of CAD files used by government agencies
9. Mandate open geometry/source for unclassified government supplies
10. Establish an “Individual Innovation Research Program” for DIY entrepreneurs
11. Give RFP priority to rural manufacturers that use personal manufacturing
12. Establish an IP “Safe Harbor” for aggregators and one-off producers
13. Explore micropatents as a smaller, simpler, and more agile unit of intellectual property
14. Re-visit consumer safety regulations for personally-fabricated products
15. Introduce a more granular definition of a “small” manufacturing business
16. Pass the National Fab Lab Network Act of 2010, HR 6003
17. “Clean company” tax benefits should include efficient manufacturing
18. Offer a tax break for personal manufacturing businesses on raw materials
19. Fund a Department of Education study on personal manufacturing in STEM education
20. Learn more about user-led product design
Lipson, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and computer science, and Kurman, of Triple Helix Innovation, make the case for strong government support of such digital fabrication technologies as the authors of a report commissioned by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Amazing Alumide Jewelry
Check out Phil Renato's amazing Rephrase jewelry to see what 10 coats of automotive clear polyurethane will do to Shapeways 3D printed Alumide.
Phil Renato is a designer, jeweler, metalsmith and artist. He earned his BFA in Painting, Metalsmithing, and Creative Writing at Eastern Michigan University and an MFA in Metals at the University of Washington. He is an Associate Professor, and the Chair of the Allesee Metals/Jewelry Design Program at Kendall College of Art and Design.
Check out his website for more work, and his Flickr account for MANY photos...
If you have any images of post processed 3D printed materials please share with us, especially if the images are of such fantastic quality as these. Check out the photobooth Phil uses to take these shots.
