Architect Brian Peters has adapted a desktop 3D printer to produce ceramic bricks. “I’ve been working with desktop 3D printers for the past couple of years and wanted to transform the machine to build something on a larger, more architectural scale,” Peters told Dezeen.
A 6-week residency at the European Ceramic Work Centre in the south of the Netherlands provided him with the opportunity to experiment with printing ceramics from a liquid earthenware recipe normally used in mould-making. The only modification required for the printer was the addition of a custom extrusion head.
The resulting Building Bytes project predicts that 3D printers will become portable, inexpensive brick factories for large-scale construction. “You could have several of these machines working simultaneously on site using pre-made or locally manufactured material,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be necessarily ceramic – it could be concrete or cement any mixture of building materials.” …
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!
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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 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
