A few weeks ago, I made an icosahedron using Fusion 360 and started playing with different ideas. On an episode of 3D Hangouts, I showed how to design one and went as far as hollowing it out and adding several LEDs to light it up. Originally, I planned to make it into a desktop ornament but shortly after, I had the idea of turning it into some sort of prop for cosplay. I though it’d make a cool looking pommel for a sword or battle axle. Not sure exactly why, but I landed on making a mace. At first, I was going to make the glowing icosahedron as the pommel but after mocking up a design, I realized there was more potential if it was the head and not the butt 🙂
Anyway, this project was a lot of fun to work on. I like how most of the pieces are modular and screw/twist together via custom threads. I used some pretty cool filaments like polishable steel composite PLA and corkFill wood composite PLA. The goal of this project is to inspire cosplayers and prop makers to use electronics in their builds. By incorporating micro-controllers and NeoPixel LEDs, I think it adds that extra dimension which makes it stand out. If a mace isn’t your jam, I think folks could use this tutorial as a guide for making a number of different props. The components and circuit can totally be used in lots of different ways, for example, this could be a sword, battle axe or even a wearable gauntlet.
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!
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
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.
