A 3D Printed iPhone case that incorporates a bottle opener, at last.... The Ultimate Minimalistic Case with bottle opener is part of a range of iPhone cases that add functionality to the protective cases.
This is like the Macgyver of the iphone cases.. this is like the swiss
army of wallets.. this is like the master of money clips..
Watch the video of the 3D Printed iPhone case options available..
Speaking to someone by Skype from your phone can be a bit awkward at times, with person on the other end often seeing only half your face or a closeup of your earlobe. EnterBotiful, a telepresence robot for consumers designed by Clair Delaunay who used Shapeways 3D Printing for her prototypes. She's already raised over $62k on Kickstarter thus far and has racked up some support by others who are hoping for more natural remote conversations, including TechCrunch and Skype's former Chief Architect Ahti Heinla.
With Skype as a simple interface, the telepresence platform for Android
phones roams around and lets you be remotely present from anywhere in the world. Botiful can enable Skype video calls, baby monitoring, and even entertaining your pets...
Claire used 3D Printing with Shapeways for some of her prototyping and
functional designs, from creating the robot's appearance to testing how she could
mount the motors, sensors,
electronic board, and battery. She also used 3D Printing with Shapeways to design an
efficient mechanism for the tilting head (she 3D printed the gears).
For every person who attempts to use a technology such as 3D Printing for a weapon (and whether the journalistic hype surrounding the drama actually meets reality), there are hundreds of thousands of people who use 3D Printing for something creative such as the iShooter, a 3D Printable ring stabilizer for the iPhone and iPad.. No more shaky videos and may even be handy for some gyroscope based driving/flying games (not first person shooters)...
Michael Williams, Shapeways forum moderator, had an idea one day...
It started one slow day at work. I wanted to sit my phone in a way that I could see the screen, charge it, and listen to a podcast. I set it up against my scanner, and the charger would make it fall over. When I put the phone in a cup I instantly noticed the sound being amplified. I could see the screen, hear the phone, and charge it! But I could not touch the screen as practically half the phone was in the cup. So I looked for something I could put my phone in that would solve this. I put it in a bowl, and was instantly sold.
So I decided to prototype my design using 123D Make. I tried some different versions and even made a paper model. I ended up making one out of cardboard using the stacked slices option. This option will make a fully solid model. So you will have more pieces to cut, but if you are using scissors as I was, it will make it so you do not have interlocking pieces that would be hard to cut out. After a few hours of cutting the paper, tracing onto the cardboard, cutting the cardboard, and hot gluing the cardboard, I had my prototype!
It worked great! With my prototype I noticed I was not able to hook up my charger while it was in the Acoustabowl. So I raised up the stand, and moved it out so that it would still hold phones leaning back and would now be able to hook up a charger.
I 3D modelled two versions for two different materials and ordered in Glossy Black Ceramic and Polished Alumide. Now I have 2 sweet phone stands for smooth music listening!
Check out the video to see the prototype progression and hear the Acoustabowl in action...and get one for yourself in his Shapeways Shop!
Today Michiel Cornelissen is introducing the US/Canadian version of The Wrap, a little accessory that attaches to the USB end of the iPhone charger. It mirrors the charger's prongs, to create a convenient way to store the charger cable.
I originally designed The Wrap for the European iPhone charger, simply trying to get rid of an annoyance I'd been experiencing myself. Of course, the European iPhone charger is very different from the one in the US and other countries, so on the web page, I put up a note, saying that if I received 100 e-mails requesting a US/Canadian version of The Wrap, I'd try to design one. I thought that, at most, a trickle of e-mails over a few months would amount to the 100 e-mails.
One of the great things about 3D Printing is that complexity is free, which means customization is free. We have a large number of co-creator designs in the Shapeways galleries that are customizable, which means if you are a designer, you can offer to modify your designs to your customers requirements. If you cannot 3D model it means you have a way of getting a designer to customize an existing designs to your specifications.
Here are just a few customizable iPhone accessories from the Shapeways gallery.
Creative advertising agency Teehan+Lax have created quite a buzz with a concept for a milk jug that can alert you when it is running low on milk. This is similar to smart-fridge and internet-of-things concepts we've seen before, however, the product itself may not be very practical for real world use.
More interesting is how the agency realized the concept by using 3D Printing. Previously, concept product images and video were likely to be rendered and would never come close to being made due to the manufacturing costs. Now, with a 3D Printer in the agency, the creative team were able to print a working example of the concept and use it in real world cases.
The result is a much more believable presentation of the concept, and I expect we will see similar uses of 3D Printing by creative teams as awareness of 3D Printing continues to grow.
The Kapsule Lightstand by Pieco is everything that you need to make your Kindle complete. It's the highest quality reading light available, and it gets its power straight from the Kindle. It has a slide-out kickstand for hands-free reading, and it provides a comfortable ergo-style grip for long reading sessions.
Minetoys is an online service that uses Shapeways 3D printing to create a full color 3D model of a Minecraft avatar.
How does it work? Your Minecraft skin is rendered in HD file (yeah, HD pixels !) and
applied to a 3D model, verified by a human being, and then sent to Shapeways for 3D Printing. You can also choose from over 600 Minecraft avatars from the Minetoys Shapeways Shop including Le Boblennon officiel !, xXNuageZombieXx, Manamaxxx and many, many more.
On Tuesday 29th of November in front of a capacity crowd of over 800 of New York's tech community at NYU Skirball Center, VP of Engineering and in house magician Josh Levine pulled some 3D magic out of his hat, literally.
The Wired Store in Times Square NYC is currently featuring the coolest gadgets, gizmos and technology from around the world so of course the Shapeways community is representing the best of 3D printing. As mentioned on the Shapeways Blog the pop-up store is open until December 24 so if you can brave Times Square head on in to see the 3D printed goodness in context of some of the coolest stuff around.
Just when you thought Theo Jansen's 3D Printed Strandbeest could not get any more creepy cool, Tim van Bentum and Bo Jansen have helped take the Strandbeest into the fourth dimension with a 3D Printed Wind Propulsion add on for the existing Strandbeests.
The 3D printed Strandbeests can now walk autonomously, powered by the wind, just like Theo's full-scale Strandbeests. The new propellor add-on gives new and existing owners of these kinetic sculptures a new way to set them in motion!
Make your own slide-on macro lens for the iPhone 4 or 4S with $11 worth of 3D printing and a $4 lens from the Surplus Shed. This is an interesting use of 3D printing to help extend the capabilities of an existing product. Quite an amazing level of detail is achieved with just a few inexpensive parts, see the image below of the ruler taken with the slide-on macro lens.
Custom jewelry design at your finger tips with iRing3D by Paracloud and Shapeways 3D Printing.
iRing3D is an app for iPad by Paracloud, allowing everyone to design and fabricate rings. You don't need to have any 3D CAD skills to design your own ring. Simply sketch the ring design with your fingertip, control the size and shape, and upload directly to Shapeways to 3D print in your choice of materials.