In honor of the launch of Star Trek Into Darkness, PCMag 3D printed a copy of the U.S.S. Enterprise on The Cube … like you do!

To boldly go where no 3D printer has gone before. Yes, that’s the pun that came to mind when we decided to make a 3D print of the U.S.S. Enterprise in honor of the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness. Much like with John Harrison, the villain in the movie, we weren’t sure what we were getting ourselves into….

Printing out the U.S.S. Enterprise proved to be an interesting challenge. Because the surface upon which objects are printed on the Cube is relatively small, we had to print out the ship in pieces that would have to be glued together at the end, rather than a single piece. And it was a little difficult to glue pieces together with the super-glue that we had bought. But in the end, we managed to make it happen.
But, really, you have to see it to believe it. Check out our time-lapse photography video of the Cube as it prints the U.S.S. Enterprise. And have a gander at our other time-lapse video where we print out a Weighted Companion Cube from Portal.

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Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!

Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!

The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!