So a few months ago my wife’s family decided that we should all go on a beach vacation together. After searching for a destination, a beach house on Topsail Island in North Carolina was selected. We packed up and headed down and of course, a 3D printer was on the way with us. Within the first two days, I was happy to have it with me. Read More
This past weekend 3DP PVD participated in Rhode Islands local Mini Maker Faire. While we were there we were also testing out some new technology. All of our printers were running Network attached and being controlled by one central laptop. At this months meeting I will show you how we got this working and how for a very small investment you two can be up and running in no time.
As usual, this meeting will be held at AS220 Labs in down town Providence. 131 Washington St, entrance around back on Lucie Way.
So you missed 3DP PVD’s CastMax build but really want to get into bot building with a little bit of help? Your are in luck! John Abella, friend to 3DP PVD and 3D printing fans everywhere is running his own class on October 5th and 6th. John will be guiding participants through the process of building the new Prusa i3 RepRap printer. John is hosting this class in Wilmington Delaware at the Double Tree hotel. So although this class is not in Rhode Island it could be a great 3D printing getaway!
For more information check out BotBuilder.net.
This month marks 1 year since our first 3DP PVD meeting and I couldn’t be happier that it has made it this long. No presentation this month, instead we will hang out and play with some bots, discuss everything we did this year, and discuss where we want to go with year 2. We have many regulars who have been with us since the beginning and many more who have stopped in from time to time. We encourage all of you to come back this month and meet everyone. The meeting will start at 7 pm on Wednesday, July 10th, at AS220 Labs as usual.
3D printing is changing the way we create products and do business and now this is evident right here in Rhode Island. Go Go Dynamo from Providence is running a Kickstarter to help launch their new line of customizable toys, the Modibot. Wayne, the creator of Modibot has been a frequent attendee at our meetings and we hope to soon have him in to talk about his process for designing these toys and using Shapeways to produce products.
Modibot only has a few days to go before the end of their Kickstarter campaign so please consider backing them now to help them reach their goal!
We are pleased to announce a special event tonight Tuesday June 18th. We are teaming up with Instructables to help celebrate the return of Tinkercad as it joins the 123D family. Join us as we have fun using these great tools that make 3D modeling easy. We will kick off around 7pm at AS220 Labs in Providence, RI. This event is free and is part of Labs weekly Open Hack night.
Not quite there, but hopefully someday.
One of the most exciting (and misunderstood) ideas to emerge with the explosion of 3D printing is using the technology to create living tissue. This new field of Bioprinting promises replacement organs, 3D printed steaks, and a range of new “biomaterials”. But, as is the case with all emerging technologies, there is a gap between the concrete deliverables and the conjectural possibilities. Wednesday night’s talk aims to explore both the current state of Bioprinting as well as its potential development, with emphasis on how the hacker/maker community might be able to contribute.
Join us at 7PM on Wednesday, June 12th at AS220 Labs for this presentation and stick around after to join in the conversation. As always this meeting is free and open to the public.
Well, as any of you on the mailing list know we are fast on our way to our first printer build event. Last night Jason, Dan, Simon, Kelly, and Andrew made their way through tapping all of the extrusion for the kits. This get’s us a long way towards being ready for our build weekend but there is still lots to do. With all of this going on we are taking this month to work on prepping for our build. If you are interested in seeing what all goes into putting this kind of event on or want to help us in our prep then please join us tonight (Wednesday, May 8th, 2013) at 7pm at AS220 Labs. If you are having bot problems and need some help feel free to bring your bot down too and we will try to get you up and running. As normal there will be tons of discussion about the current trends and topics in 3D printing also.
At previous meetings we have discussed modeling tools that are either very easy to get started with ore are more oriented to creating precise models for parts and useful objects. Most of these tools though are not great at making sculptural things. This is where ZBrush shines. ZBrush allows you to make models more like you are actually sculpting them instead of relying on geometric shapes like Sketchup or OpenSCAD. Jason Loik is a profesional sculptor and toy maker. He will guide us through the basics of what ZBrush is and how we can get started. This meeting will be on Wednesday April 10th starting at 7pm. Like always we will be meeting at AS220 Labs in downtown Providence, RI.
A few months ago I was having a discussion with a friend about what was going to come along in 2013 for desktop 3D printing and he predicted that 2013 would be the year of materials. Thus far he is once again being proven to have his finger on the pulse. The past 6 months have seen multiple new filaments come to market. These filaments are not just experimental filaments that are fun to play around with but are actual working thermoplastics with properties that add new possibilities to our prints.
Join us for our March meeting, where we will discuss some of these new filaments, how to print with them, and why you would want to. This is your chance to find out more about the cool properties of Laywoo-d3 and the resilience of Taulman 618. This meeting is free and open to the public. We will be meeting at AS220 Labs as usual and will be getting started around 7pm on Wednesday March 13, 2013.