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.
Michael Overstreet: Mike is a roboticist, 3d printer owner and blogger.
His 3d printer is a UP Plus version 1.2 which he uses to print out robot brackets and frames. During the day, he is a computer programmer and at night and on the weekends he 3d printings out and builds humanoid robots.
What he’s proud of (“my robot kids”):
Q: TOP THREE PRINTING MOMENTS FROM 2014?
- 3d printing in space but for more than the 3d printing. The astronauts in the space station needed a tool. An engineer on the ground design and then sent the part file to the station. The astronauts then printed the tool and used it to for repairs! Now everyone can print out the tool part too! I find the whole process cool. It is similar to what my friend in Japan Yoshihiro Shibata and I do. We send .STL and .STEP files of robot parts back and forth to each other to print out. It is a great way to collaborate!
- 3DXMax™ CFR Carbon Fiber Reinforced ABS Filament, I just started using this filament and it is cool!
- 3d printing of food!
Q: WHAT’S A 3D PROJECT YOU SHARED THIS YEAR?
My 3d printing of the ROBOTIS-MINI.
Q: WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO FOR 3D PRINTING IN 2015?
- Easy to use and cheap 3d design software
- New and improved types of filament for my FFF 3d printer
- New and improved DIY SLS, SLA and DLP printers for makers to use.
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!