This month we will be showing off our love of 3D printing by creating Valentines gifts. New filaments are in the process of becoming FDA approved for food uses and we will employ one of them to demo casting chocolate hearts. Please join us as we melt our snow laden blues away with these sweet treats. The event is free and open to the public as always. We encourage you to bring some chocolate along for the melting if you would like to try your hand at the process. We will kick off at 7PM at AS220 Labs tonight February 12th.

Tis the season for giving and if the shipping numbers from some of our favorite 3D printing manufacturers are any indication, some of you are getting 3D printers for Christmas. We expect that mare than a couple of you are going to need help with those printers too. We are here to help! Stop by 3D Printing Providence at AS220 Labs Wednesday January 8th (from 7pm until late) for our free monthly meeting and we will do our best to get you up and running.

The holiday shopping season is in full swing and if you are struggling to find the right gift for that special 3D printing fan in your life (or possibly even yourself), then stop by Wednesday, December 11th, to check out the Form 1 from Formlabs. The Form 1 is on the cutting edge of desktop 3D printing. A true SLA printer, the Form 1 uses guided lasers to cure liquid resin into the desired model. The print quality provided by this technique leaves FFF printers in the dust. The Formlabs team will be joining us at 7pm at AS220 Labs. This is a great opportunity to ask questions and see examples of what this printer is capable of and hopefully see it in action.

Of course we will also have a few other machines on display and the regular crew will be there to answer any questions newcomers might have. Since this is our holiday meeting we will probably stick around late so if you can’t make it on time, don’t hesitate to stop by later but since the Form team is heading down from Boston we will be starting their portion on time (for once).

This Wednesday, November 13th there will be no plastic spared and no quarter given (just pennies) as we meet on the field of battle (AS220 Labs). The walls of plastic will be built and swiftly destroyed by the rain of skillfully aimed pennies, for this is Seej and no place for the weak!

Seej is a fully 3D Printed game by Jim “Zheng3“. Players can expand upon the game using the many different models created by Jim and other members of the community or even create their own war machines to bring into battle. We will be holding a small tournament to see who is the true master of the plastic battle field, so be sure to arrive on time or you will be left as a spectator. To keep things fair we will only be using pieces from the main battle set in our tournament, but you are more than welcome to bring your own printed armaments to enjoy side skirmishes.

This is going to be a fun social meeting so if you have never joined us before, this is a great opportunity to do so. We will also be collecting any additional parts that any of our community members have created since our last prosthetics meet up. These will be bundled up and sent to Africa to meet up with our first batch of hands that are already there.

The meeting will start at 7pm with the battles beginning shortly after. This meeting is free and open to everyone but if you feel like bringing drinks, snacks, beer, etc to share with the rest of the group that would be greatly appreciated!

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.

A few months ago, I mentioned the great kickstarter that was being run by Rhode Island’s own Wayne Losey: Modibot. I am pleased to announce that Wayne will be joining us this month to discuss his work designing toys for 3D printing and creating a business based on that. Wayne has been an attendee of our meetings in the past but I am excited to have him as our speaker.

As usual our meeting will start at 7pm at AS220 Labs in down town Providence, RI. It is free and open to the public. I hope to see you there!

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.

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.

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.