3D printed hair-clips inspired by Bruce Sterling's "Kiosk"

Amanda J sez, "Inspired by Bruce Sterling's novella, Kiosk (which I read based on a Boing Boing link in 2008), I've designed hair clips for printing in 3D. Hoping for some remixes, and some 2d design to go with them!"

In 2008 I read a novella by Bruce Sterling called Kiosk. The main character, Borislav, is a humble, limping man from a cold, Eastern European country who owns a street kiosk selling 3d printed tchotchkes. A young girl called Jovanica is a regular customer - returning day after day with her pocket-money to buy 3d printed barrettes, hair clips and scrunchies - she's the trend setter of the area. She picks out the coolest hair toys and leads the next hair toy craze - with Borislav's kiosk being the only supplier.
I could never get that story out of my head, and for the last fortnight I've been designing my own 'hair toys' - 3d printed hair clips for modification, alteration, customization and use. Now, 3d printing is easy in stories, but this design took me 16 iterative builds to perfect - it features 3 different plastic springs, a custom snap fastener, and a flexible grip for the hair. I am rather pleased with it - it's utterly reliant on being printed in plastic - it relies on the mechanical properties of the PLA.

Jovanica's Hair Toys - 3d Printed Hair Clips (Thanks, Amanda J!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: fanac

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Tinkergirl

To Anne K. – if you can’t find a nearby 3d printer (maybe a local hackerspace?) let me know via the Myriad Whimsies blog and I’ll send you one to try out, if you like.
Anne K.

I have thick curly hair and am always looking for heavy duty barrettes like these to hold the masses back! I would wear the SHIT out of these.
jeligula

Those are some hairy, mondo-type of hair-clips, heavy duty to say the least. Designed to control thick manes, they are not pretty enough to use on horses. They look almost capable of doubling as a capo on a guitar. Cut the head off a 16 penny nail, and it actually would work as a capo.
equilibrist

I couldn’t remember who wrote the story but would think of it every time I saw an article about 3-D printing. Thanks for refreshing my memory.
AT203

Sadly the Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine (SFSite.com) website link appears to be dead. I’m intrigued to read this story now.
Anonymous

Shameless self promotion…

3D Printed Lego Hair Clip
http://www.shapeways.com/model/220326/
boo

Watch out — Cory will think you owe 25% of whatever you gross to Bruce Sterling!

Nice clips, BTW.
Anonymous

Apparently it’s part of his collection, Ascendencies: The Best of Bruce Sterling (ISBN 978-1-59606-113-2), but you could also use the Wayback Machine to take a trip back in time to when the link did work, for a taster.