3D Printing
  • mathgrrl

Battle: Five-Cent Hammer vs Customizable Diorama
Battle: Five-Cent Hammer vs Customizable Diorama 628 472 mathgrrl
It’s only Week 2 of the mathgrrl vs atartanian Thingiverse battle and it is already starting to sink in how difficult it is going to be to come up with something new and awesome every week. My entry is a Five-Cent Hammer that gets its heft from five embedded US pennies. It’s small enough to fit into your pocket or print quickly in an emergency, and it will only cost you a nickel… // Hacktastic
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Battle: Fidget Star vs Flexible Train Tracks
Battle: Fidget Star vs Flexible Train Tracks 639 477 mathgrrl
Absurdly, now that I’m actually working at MakerBot I seem to have stopped posting models to Thingiverse… until now. Thanks to 3D-printing hero atartanian, I’m now in a knock-down, drag-out, winner-take-all, print-a-thing-every-week battle. My entry for Week 1 is a Fidget Star, half of a Yoshimoto Cube; a Stellated Rhombic Dodecahedron with exactly half of the volume of the cube… // Hacktastic
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Pi Day + OpenSCAD Celebration!
Pi Day + OpenSCAD Celebration! 640 480 mathgrrl
Celebrate! First, yesterday the new version of OpenSCAD was released! Second, Saturday will be Super Pi Day: March 14, 2015. To celebrate both of these things simultaneously, today’s model is a pi-flavored illusion cup that was made using some of the new features in OpenSCAD. Most people will think the cup is taller than it is around, but in fact it is shorter than its circumference. And we can prove it… // Hacktastic
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Of Math and Meshes
Of Math and Meshes 640 480 mathgrrl
This new Mesh Collector is a repository for information about the topology and geometry of triangulated meshes. It’s a work in progress that I hope to add to over time, as I learn more about these things. This is the Schönhardt polyhedron, which is the simplest example of a non-tetrahedralizable polyhedron, meaning that it cannot be subdivided into tetrahedra that share its vertices… // Hacktastic
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Learning Maya
Learning Maya 1580 819 mathgrrl
Another “Wisdom Collector” is up and running, this time about the 3D modeling and animation software Maya. I had a hard time figuring out how to get started with Maya until I got permission to sit in on a couple of classes on the subject and actually watch the instructor use the software. Even just figuring out where all the menus and buttons are is a monumental task!… // Hacktastic
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Tackling three.js
Tackling three.js 622 586 mathgrrl
I want to learn to use the JavaScript library three.js to get WebGL to render 3D animations. The trouble is, I don’t know anything about JavaScript, three.js, or WebGL. Are you in the same boat? If so, then we might as well paddle together. I managed to make a spinny graphic after many days of scrutinizing code that I actually old-school printed out and read on the subway every day… // Hacktastic
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Polyhedral LEDs, Step 2: Tinkercad
Polyhedral LEDs, Step 2: Tinkercad 1024 816 mathgrrl
This is the second in a series of posts that walk through the 3D design construction of some Polyhedral Light String Ornaments. In this step we’ll scale that Snub Cube to “ornament size.” Along the way we’ll have a chance to learn about Tinkercad’s importing, scaling, and the Ruler and Align tools. Tinkercad is one of the simplest ways to make or modify 3D models… // Hacktastic
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Polyhedral LEDs, Step 1: Mathematica
Polyhedral LEDs, Step 1: Mathematica 844 646 mathgrrl
It’s time for another design walkthrough. This time we’ll be making polyhedral covers for LED string-lights. Since I’m just a hack at 3D design, for me the answer always involves using a chain of software programs, each of which I know how just enough about to get by, in this case Mathematica, TopMod, and Tinkercad. Each ornament is a hollowed-out instellated Archimedean solid or dual… // Hacktastic
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Holiday Belt-Tightening
Holiday Belt-Tightening 640 480 mathgrrl
Do you ever get 3D prints that look stringy or lumpy? This week we were seeing a lot of weird-looking prints from one of our Replicator 2’s, so we decided it was time for some holiday hardware maintenance. And wow, did it ever make a difference. After tightening a saggy X-axis belt we’re back as good as new. Tightening the belt isn’t difficult but it isn’t much fun either… // Hacktastic
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Snowflake Cutter
Snowflake Cutter 548 414 mathgrrl
Last winter we made 3D-printed snowflakes by converting images to bitmap with Inkscape, and then extruding in Tinkercad. You can read about that on the old MakerHome blog, Days 70 and 71, or download the models from Thingiverse. The reason we made 3D snowflake models that way last year is because that was all we knew how to do. I’m somewhat wiser now, and one whole year older… // Hacktastic
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