Today I spoke with jamesford007, a student at SUNY Geneseo who is spearheading efforts there to bring 3D printing into the study of mathematics. He shared with me his technique for creating thickened parametric surfaces in Mathematica that can be exported as STL files, and posted a lovely Mobius strip on Thingiverse which is our 3D print for the day:
Thingiverse link: http://www.thingiverse.com/make:64949
Settings: MakerWare with the custom slicing profile that we use for printing knots (see Day 110), to minimize support. We printed this vertically, standing on the flat side to the right in the picture above. In that orientation the only support that is printed is a small amount at the base and a very thin sheet of support that supports the top of the model through the center.
Technical notes: Here is the Mathematica code that James wrote to generate this model:
will help us keep Hacktastic running. Thanks! :)
That's a coincidence – I was working on Mobius a few days ago using Openscad – http://kitwallace.tumblr.com/post/75264490978/mobius-strip