…3-D scans are only as good as the object they’re based on, and unlike purely digital designs, any mass produced product will bear defects that reveal the way it was manufactured. Subtle mold lines, misalignments, and other deformities from mass production are captured in the digital data which are then passed on to the 3-D prints. Instead of minimizing these manufacturing malfunctions, [Slovakian design student Silva Lovasová] wanted to highlight them in the form of new designs.
She was uncertain about how to best illustrate this phenomena until she found her muse in the form of miniature doll house furniture. “I was spending weeks surveying every toy shop in the city,” she says. “I collected a sizable heap of miscellaneous sets, tea services, tiny houses with dolls and ponies.” She scanned the pocket-sized plastic furniture and scaled the resulting models up with her CAD tools until they would sit comfortably next to Ikea’s finest.
Small imperfections in the original plastic parts became monstrous caricatures. A lamp that looked fine at a small scale leaned perilously at full-size and ended up looking like a distorted child’s drawing. A thin parting line on a tea pot became a nasty porcelain scar at human scale. Much like looking at your face in a high magnification mirror, every blemish and imperfection became disturbingly clear….
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!
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
