Shapeways member Xcapee made some 3D printed gifts for speakers at a conference that he helped organise. The model is a sleeve that slips over a LED tealight. I love the idea. This is the third time that someone has used Shapeways to make conference gifts and maybe it is a niche we should perhaps more actively approach. I’m not sure how much the LED lights were, but the cost of printing the sleeves was $13.71 so it seems that this is quite an affordable gift too. I think I’ll experiment a little with LEDs and our Ring Poems to see if we can make a ersatz version of Xcapee’s model that anyone can then make using our Creator. Kudos to Xcapee’s for inspiring us, his creative gifts and also for his amazing beard. You can check out the video below.
The tea lights gifts were inspired by the light poems! The light poems just weren’t within the conference budget. I also found that ALLUPPERCASEJOINEDTOGETHERWITHOUTGAPS just didn’t seem right for what I was looking for. Raising the letters off a base cylinder allowed the text to flow the way I wanted it to. I also had to lower the dots on the letter ‘i’s to join the stems on the top ring of text.
I bought a dozen off ebay, shipped from Hong Kong for < AU$2.00 each including shipping. I have now started to see them in discount stores for the same price or less. I would imagine they could be found for around US$1 each. The entire gift with hanging lantern (see photo in model page) will cost around AU$45. I will probably adjust the inner diameter and print quite a few of these.
oops – no option to edit blog comments…
You probably guessed that “I bought a dozen off ebay” refers to the LED Tea Lights.