Our May meeting is here and we are pleased to announce that 3DP PVD is making some big changes. Firstly, we are changing the location of our meetings, this month we will be meeting at Digital City. Digital City is located at 131 Washington Street, this is the same building that we have met at in the past, just down the hall. We will be kicking off this Wednesday May 14th at 7pm. Along with our announcements, we will be getting together for our normal jovial banter regarding the happenings in the 3D printing world. If you have a printer that you would like to show to the group (or one that you would like the group to help you fix), please feel free to bring it along. This meeting like always is free and open to the public. If you feel like bringing snacks or beverages, that would be great but is not required. We look forward to seeing you there.

It’s time for our April meeting and this month we are going to hold off on any organized presentation and instead give more time towards showing off (or working on) our bots.  Feel free to bring in your printer or any projects you want to present to the group. Snacks and drinks are always appreciated but are not required. Of course as always, this meeting is free and open to new comers. We will be kicking off at 7pm at AS220 Labs on Wednesday, April 9th.

Many of you have asked to learn more about the free open source 3D modeling tool, Blender. This month longtime 3DPPVD member Kelly Egan will guide us through the basics of using this powerful but daunting tool. From Kelly on the presentation:

Blender may have been designed for CG Animation but like many other 3D design tools they are adding features to help with 3D printing. In this presentation I’ll talk about those features, how I have designed a few 3D printed items using Blender and some of the benefits parts and drawbacks to using a animation package for solid modeling.

Join us Wednesday, March 12th at 7pm for this and our usual banter and idea exchange. This meeting is free and open to the public and will be held at our usual location, AS220 Labs on Lucy Way in the Mercantile block.

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!