Sci-fi objects from a 3D printer

Make reader RoboGeek has been playing with a Spectrum Z510 3D printer, whipping up science fictional objects out of bits and atoms.


One of the objects is a "metatron" by Bathsheba Grossman. The red polyhedral sphere is the work of George Hart (http://www.georgehart.com/rp/rp.html) and is actually 7(!) nesting spheres, I assigned a different color to each one. I hope one day to print that one out of plastic. When you take an object out of the "build tray", you place it in a dust cabinet and blow off ant excess powder with a needle tipped airbrush. Then you CAREFULLY "infiltrate" it with cyanoacrylate. I did this by dipping one of those little red coffee stirrers you find in office kitchenettes, and applying it one drop at a time. Having a touch of OCD helps this procedure. ;-) We used Loctite 408, as it was less expensive than buying replacements from ZCorp. MicroMark sells little paint/glue brushes that are small plastic handles with fuzzy flocking on one end. The Serenity is from a poly mesh sent to me by Sean Kennedy, aka Treybor in the 3d computer modeling community. I don't recall where I got the Hawk Mark IX mesh from. The Z510 can print from vrml models. None of these are painted; the Z510 prints in color. Good joke: the software comes with a jpg of the IniTech (Office Space) logo! Note the logo on the command cabin of the Hawk Mark IX. The Lego gears I designed in AutoCad 2002. The yellow one is a replica of a 40-tooth Lego Technic gear, the largest they make. The others are 56 & 96-tooth, I designed for use as parts in an all-Lego clock.

Link

(Thanks, PT!)