3D Printing Adventure for Kids @ MakerBot Retail Store.
An Inventive Experience
Writers bring things to life in readers’ imaginations, but can a writer make things come alive in 3D?
That was Carla Diana’s goal when she published her first children’s book, Leo the Maker Prince, which is for sale at the MakerBot Retail Store. It features Leo, a walking, talking robot who can 3D print any object. He befriends a young woman and takes her on a whirlwind tour of Brooklyn, NY, introducing her to his many robot friends. Together they explore 3D printing and all the creative things you can do with it.
Equipping the Next Generation
Diana, a Brooklyn-based industrial designer and contributor to the New York Times, had worked with 3D printers for years. She wanted to share the magic of the technology as it became accessible to more people.
I had a strong sense affordable, personal 3D printers such as the MakerBot Replicator would empower makers like artists, tinkerers and students to realize projects that previously only existed in daydreams and sketchbooks.
Meet Diana, Build Character(s)
If you’d like to learn more about this author’s approach to creativity, Diana will be speaking and signing books at the MakerBot Retail Stores on:
- Saturday January 18, 1:00pm: New York, NY
- Saturday January 25, 1:00pm: Boston, MA
- Saturday February 1, 1:00pm: Greenwich, CT
At the store, you’ll also see 3D printed models of characters and objects from Leo the Maker Prince on display. You can download the models from Thingiverse and make them yourself. One of Diana’s dreams is that children who make 3D prints from her story will become the innovators of tomorrow…
Featured Adafruit Product!
LEO the Maker Prince – Journeys in 3D Printing by Carla Diana: LEO the Maker Prince teaches children (both young and old) about 3D printing by following Carla and LEO’s journey through Brooklyn. LEO is a walking, talking robot who has the magical ability to to print (in plastic) any object that Carla draws. The other robots have their own special capabilities: H1-H0 prints in metal, Sinclair-10 can find and print objects from a huge catalog of designs, and the others (including AL1C3-D, IRIS-7, and NiXie) have unique talents, too. Readers can come along for the journey, too: all of the objects in the book are printable one way or another. (read more)
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!
