If you’re a guy, chances are you’ve probably opened the hood of your car, poked around for a bit and then thought “Yep, that’s an engine”. While most men are fascinated by engines, unfortunately many of us can do little more than check the oil. But if you’re eager to learn more, you can now do so at home without taking your own car apart. Mechanical engineer Eric Harrell has just shared a 3D printable 35-percent scale model of a Subaru’s EJ20 flat-four engine that is fully functional, though obviously not a real engine. A perfect 3D printing project that will teach you all about how engines actually function.
If this project sounds familiar, that’s because this isn’t actually Harrell’s first 3D printed engine. The mechanical engineer, who goes by ERICTHEPOOLBOY online, has previously shared numerous fantastic car-related 3D printing projects, including this working 3D printed replica of a Toyota 4 Cylinder Engine 22RE back in January. Most importantly, like that Toyota replica, this Subaru engine is not an actual engine. “It’s fully functional as in all parts move as intended in the real thing. Do not confuse it with a real engine, as this is not,” Harrell says.
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!
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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 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
