We invited a handful of members of the 3D printing community that we have been featuring for #3DThursday or on our weekly 3D Hangouts live show to share with us their thoughts about the past year, what they each shared, and what they are looking forward to for 2015.
I’m an open source 3d printer developer whose designs include the Reprap Wallace, the Deezmaker Bukito, and the original version of the spring/lever extruder mechanism that the majority of modern extruder designs are based on, and also started the Universal Filament Identification system (UFID) project.
Q: TOP THREE PRINTING MOMENTS FROM 2014?
- Bukito portable 3d printer ships to backers!
- 3d printing filaments with metal fillers. This year kicked off what I think will be big trend of new composite/filled printing materials.
- Giant 3d printers! At Maker Faire NY, we saw the PartDaddy AND a car made on another huge 3d printer.
Q: WHAT’S A 3D PROJECT YOU SHARED THIS YEAR?
Although I’m way behind on publishing the projects I’ve worked on, I did show my Skanbot, a portable kinect-based 3D scanner with a telescoping lift mechanism at Maker Faire Bay Area.
Q: WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO FOR 3D PRINTING IN 2015?
I’m looking forward to 3D printing becoming more consistent, reliable and easy due to the adoption of standards like the UFID project.
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!