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Monthly Archives: October 2013

JesseAu

On October 17th, Jesse Harrington Au, the Maker Advocate for Autodesk will be visiting providence and is stopping in to visit us.  Jesse has given us a great teaser as to what he will be talking about:

“The 123D universe has become a vast place full of ways to design, create and fabricate, with this live demo of the tool chain from Design , Catch, and Make into Meshmixer and then out to 3D print utility you will get to see the full capabilities of radicalness involved with free software. I will also answer questions about life, dreams and guns.”

Join us at 7pm at AS220 labs for this special event.

RoboHand

As we reported last week, Adafruit, has helping organize a month long initiative to improve the functionality and production of 3D printed prosthetics. Every Friday this month, they will be hosting a Google hangout to show progress from the community and answer questions from those getting involved.

One of the main projects that has been adopted for helping those in need has been the Robohand project. There are numerous community members who are working on improving the design, including Michael Curry, who has designed a fully printable model without the need for any extra hardware.

On Friday, October 25th, 3DP PVD will be hosting a build party to bring together printers from around the region to help create these devices for those in need. We are working with other groups who are finding little heroes who are looking to become superheroes with their new mechanical hands!

If you have a 3D printer and would like to join us to help create these devices, come to AS220 Labs in downtown Providence, RI starting at 6pm on Friday October 25th. If you know a child who might benefit from one of these devices we would love to have them join us so we can fit them during the event. Please contact us at info@3dppvd.org if you would like to join us or would like to help us out in anyway.

To find out more about these projects check out the links and video bellow.

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LongPrinters

Over the course of our meetings we have talked a great deal about the abilities of the new lines of desktop 3D printers that have sprung into existence over the past few years. This month R&D Technologies is going to join us to show what the professional side of the industry is capable of. R&D is a reseller of Stratasys printers (the now parent company of MakerBot). So join us this Wednesday 7pm, at AS220 Labs as Ben Gardell and Justin Coutu demo some of the capabilities of these machines and answer your questions about these technologies.

adafruit_2135

 

One of the most exciting recent developments in the desktop 3D printing world has come from makers designing low cost but amazingly functional prosthetic devices. One of the most successful of these projects has been the Robohand project who’s work was documented in a promotional video created by MakerBot. The device created by Robohand can grip objects with the flex of the users wrist and was fully printed on a desktop 3D printer.

Now Adafruit is hosting a month long event to try to further the spread of this project. Every friday in October, they will be hosting a Google + hangout where fellow makers can share their progress in printing and helping to distribute these devices to those in need.

Adafruit reached out to us at 3DPPVD in hopes that our talented team of printing enthusiasts could join in on the fun. We invite all of you to join us this Friday, for the introductory hangout where members of the Adafruit team and other partners will explain the goals of the month long project.

You can find out more from Adafruit’s announcement here.

MBDissolvableFilament

 

After months of watching updates that included cat shaped infill patterns and other nonsense, MakerBot has finally released their official support for dissolvable HIPS support material based on the research done here at 3DPPVD. They have branded their new filament line MakerBot Dissolvable and made it available to be shipped on the day of the announcement. MakerBot has priced their new filament at $65 a kilo which is an over 60% markup to the same material offered by Filaco.

With this new material MakerBot has also upgraded MakerWare to support printing support structures on a secondary extruder. Now on a dual extrusion machine, HIPS can be printed alongside ABS without the need to generate two separate models. They have also included color matching support and rafts for dual extrusion multicolor prints. This will eliminate colored scars in your prints from the removal of a different colored support material.

You can read more about our research into soluble support material here and find out more about MakerBots announcement here.

Finally, don’t miss Hack A Day’s coverage of some of our advanced materials research that was on display at this years World Maker Faire.