The very talented Jessica Rosenkrantz of Nervous System published a great article that highlights some fascinating projects that are pushing the possibilities of designing hard objects to behave like flexible textile.

Our Kinematics project is one approach to making flexible objects with 3d-printing. By interconnecting hundreds of rigid panels with hinges, we can create objects that behave like fabrics at the macro scale. The piece themselves don’t flex, but the structure they form does. 3d-printing flexible structures isn’t anything new. I was first introduced to the idea back in 2000 when Freedom of Creation produced a chainmail dress using SLS printing. However, over the past week, I’ve seen a number of interesting projects that take different approaches to flexibility. Here are three.

Full Post on the Nervous System Blog

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! We also offer the LulzBot TAZ – Open source 3D Printer and the Printrbot Simple Metal 3D Printer in our store. 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!