Awesome Stuff: 3D Printing And Scanning Keeps Advancing

from the on-and-on-and-on dept

Welcome back for another week of awesome stuff, our weekly post on interesting crowdfunding projects. First off, just last week, awesome stuff was about reclaiming classic culture, and I expressed disappointment that only two campaigns could be found having to do with public domain materials. I should have waited a week because a new project launched which is a great companion to last week's Musopen's Chopin project. This time it's a project to record and release Bach music as well. Check it out.

But on to this week's offerings. It really was just a little less than four months ago that we had an awesome stuff post about 3D printing, marveling at how quickly the space had advanced (and gotten cheaper). And it seems like in just that short period of time there's been some continued movement in the 3D printing and 3D scanning world. There are so many 3D printing and 3D scanning projects going on right now, so let's point out a few.

• First up is the somewhat astounding Structure Sensor device, designed to turn your mobile device into a full 3D scanner. The video is slick, but if the device can do what it shows it's really quite impressive. From simple scanning of rooms or items and turning them immediately into 3D models to playing augmented reality game that really takes advantage of where you are, something like this seems to have a ton of potential, all hooked up to your mobile device. Watch the video and get inspired. Apparently there is tremendous demand for this sort of thing. The project only launched a few days ago and already is well past half a million dollars with over a month to go. This looks like another massive Kickstarter success story.
• As you'll see below, there are a ton of 3D printers out there, each one emphasizing different features. It can get a little difficult to stand out from the crowd. However, the Peachy 3D Printer and Scanner caught my attention. First off, it's $100. Yes. $100. The current "floor" for low end 3D printers has been around $400, so if this guy can really do $100 3D printers, that's very interesting. But perhaps even more interesting is that when you watch the video, you realize that he's not building yet another 3D printer by riffing off the way everyone else tries to do it, but he really rethought how a 3D printer could be built. It doesn't look like most other 3D printers, and doesn't appear to really work in the same way as other 3D printers. The fact that he built his first prototype almost entirely with "objects around the house" is kind of crazy. That said, it's pretty clear that this project is very early. The output quality of the Peachy Printer is clearly much, much lower than most other 3D printers on the market. So there's an element of "you get what you pay for" going on here. But, still, it's inspiring to see this attempt to just rethink how a 3D printer could work (and how it could be pretty cheap). With this project, people are really betting on a dream. The project is still very much in the early stages, and needs a lot of refinement. His expected delivery date isn't until next summer, and as pretty much everyone who's ever backed a Kickstarter project knows, projects always run late. Either way, the project has already raised about a third of its $50,000 (CAD) goal, with a month to go, so it will likely reach its target.
• Next up, we've got the 3Dsimo, which is a 3D printer "pen." You may remember the 3Doodler, which was one of the most successful projects on Kickstarter from earlier this year (raising $2.3 million). The 3Dsimo looks like a fairly similar offering, though it seems to be getting almost no attention at all. These extruder pens are a little different than a true "3D printer" but I'm expecting the market for these to develop separately as well, as people realize how handy it can be to "freehand" create a 3D object. As mentioned, this project seems to have received almost no attention. Unlike the 3Doodler which shot through its goal in almost no time at all, the 3Dsimo opened its campaign a week ago and only has six backers. It's a long way away from reaching its goal. Remember, running a crowdfunding project requires more than just putting it up and hoping people come.
• There are so many other 3D printers and scanners currently in the midst of crowdfunding projects. So rather than doing the typical "deep dive," I figured I'd do some quick hits on a bunch of them:
  • Zim: a dual head WiFi 3D printer, that has a really nice compact design, with a focus on being easy to use. Priced at the lower end (different models, all well under $1,000). You can remote control it from your smartphone, which is cool, complete with a camera so you can see how the printing is going even if you're not there.
  • Phoenix 3D Printer: a more traditional 3D printer, hitting that "sweet spot" on the low end of $400. This one looks like a ton of other 3D printers, but they claim that the software is a lot nicer, though it's a bit tough to tell.
  • Lionhead 3D printer and scanner. These guys also talk up their software, and the printer is definitely a higher end printer, with 3 or 8 print heads, designed for ease of use and to look nice... but with a much higher price point. This is definitely more in the tradition of premium 3D printers.
  • gMax 3D Printer. A traditional looking 3D printer, priced slightly over $1,000, the focus here is on being able to print big things. So if you think you'll be needing to print larger items, this one may be worth checking out.
  • ZEUS, which they claim is the "first" 3D printer/copy machine, but since some of the other projects in this very list do that too, this claim is a bit suspect. This is also a premium priced offering, between $2,000 and $2,500. The device itself is nicely designed, complete with a 7-inch touch screen. Of all the 3D printers, this one has more of a "consumer ready" feel, but not exactly a consumer-ready price.
  • On the 3D scanner side, I'll point to both the Dimbody and the Rubicon, which offer fairly similar products, though at first glance they're much more limited than the Structure Sensor above.

And... that's it for this extra long awesome stuff. Maybe in a few months we'll revisit the 3D printing and scanning space again to see just how rapidly it continues to innovate, advance and change.

Filed Under: 3d printing, 3d scanning, awesome stuff

Awesome Stuff: Lasers, Infrared And Photons

from the beam-it dept

Another week, more awesome crowdfunding projects. No need to waste time with the intro, let's get right to it.

• Lasertag has been around for a while but a bunch of students (high school?) have tried reinventing it for the modern era, using infrared devices that are more stealthy and have some advantages over the old game. First, they have a system of LEDs that will light up and show how many hit points you have left when hit, and second is that pretty much any IR device can act as a "gun." I'll be honest that I was never a huge lasertag guy, but a project that involves students building something cool seems pretty awesome. Of course, lasertag has always been misnamed, since I'm pretty sure it's always been IR devices rather than lasers, but it's cool to see how it's being reimagined by some students. The project is definitely still a work in progress and looks fairly crude at the moment, but many of the rewards involve sending you the schematics to build your own out of various household items.
• Okay, you say that's unfair and you want real lasers? How about the Blue Laser Lamp. While they talk about its use for home theaters and outdoors, it really does seem most likely to be useful as a nightlight of some sort. It also has a vibe that suggests that this could be the next lava lamp. Something that stoned college kids think looks awesome, but has little functional practicality. Still, it's a unique design, and I figured some folks out there might appreciate it. The early bird pricing ($35) sold out quickly, and the project has gained a huge amount of support pretty quickly, though it still has a ways to go before reaching its goal. Given the time left, however, I doubt it will have much trouble getting there.
• Finally, perhaps something a bit more useful. The first time I ever got to "play" with a 3D scanner was in 1997 when I took a class with Donald Greenberg (who I later went on to work for and consult with), one of the pioneers in 3D computer graphics and the Director of Cornell's Program for Computer Graphics. He had a massive 3D scanner in his lab, and I got to be the guinea pig in our class, getting my head scanned. Even though I recognize standard technology trends in which products get cheaper as they get much better, it still seemed ridiculous to think that there'd be a day not that far in the future where personal home 3D scanners were possible and reasonably priced. There's been plenty of talk about 3D printers, but less attention has been paid to the scanning side. So it's cool to see the Photon 3D Scanner, which is an attempt to make an affordable home 3D scanner. The early birds sold out at $349 and $399, but everyone else can jump in at the $449 level if you feel the desperate need to scan things in 3D in your home any time soon.

And that's it for this week -- and a special thanks to folks who have started submitting examples of crowdfunded "awesome stuff." It's really helpful, since there are so many interesting projects out there these days.

Filed Under: 3d scanning, awesome stuff, infrared, lasers, lasertag, photons