As a special pre-Maker Faire treat, #3DThursday will be celebrating a number of 3D designers from the desktop 3D printing community, culminating in the #3DThursday Happy Hour event later tonight.

Early to join the desktop 3D revolution (with MakerBot Cupcake Serial #09!), Clothbot has put in countless hours exploring materials and methods towards new ways to use 3D printers, particularly in the context of wearable electronics and soft circuits. (Check out this early Shapeways interview with him here.)

I have learned quite a bit from him from his years of passionate exploration of OpenSCAD as a designer. In addition to his own design and experimentation, he has played a crucial role nurturing the nascent open source 3D community from the first few mad hackers into the unstoppable hordes you will see at Maker Faire this weekend, both as an educator and as a behind-the-scenes online community manager (bowing out in this moving post from the end of 2012).

He is also an EE and a passionate electronics hacker, so I’m thrilled to encounter him in the Adafruit community as well!

I was thrilled to receive the above sneak peak teaser from Clothbot (Andrew Plumb) along with his RSVP for tonight:

Mount plate for Melexis US1881 sensors to track magnets mounted in the rollers of an Adafruit Peristaltic Pump. (photos)

Featured Adafruit Product!

Peristaltic Liquid Pump with Silicone Tubing: Move fluid safely from here to there with this very nice little pump. Unlike most liquid pumps, this is a peristaltic type – the pump squishes the silicone tubing that contains the liquid instead of impelling it directly. The upshot? The pump never touches the fluid which makes this an excellent choice for any food/drink/sterile based pumping such as for making drink-bots or gardening robots! The pump is basically a geared down DC motor, so it has a lot of torque. Inside the pump is a ‘clover’ pattern of rollers. As the motor turns, the clover presses on the tube to press the fluid though. The pump does not need to be primed and in fact can self-prime itself with water a half meter with ease. You can PWM the motor to speed up or slow down the flow rate and if you connect the motor the other way it will move fluid the other direction. Works great with either a power transistor (basic on/off) or a motor driver chip such as the L293D. (read more)