Snowflake Lithophane

There is something magical about looking at a lithophane.  I like handing them to people with the light coming from the front.  Most of the time they are polite and say, "that's nice."  Then I have them hold the lithophane to let the light come in from the back and the image pops out.  "Wow," "cool" they say and the expressions on their faces are ones of awe and surprise.

For christmas this year, my wife came up with the idea of putting a picture of the kids inside of a lithophane inside of a 3D printed snowflake.

Took a while to figure out but got much easier when I found an openscad program to generate snowflakes I found on Thingiverse:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:74322

I picked a random seed that fit well with my idea and then I tried importing my the stl file from my lithophane program.  I could not quite git it to work. So, instead I decided to make the print in two parts and glue them together. I did some minor modifications to the openscad file add an area for the lithophane, the hole for a ribbon and in latter modifications a way to add the year:

You can download the stl file for the frame on youmagine:

https://www.youmagine.com/designs/snowflake-ornament-frame

Now I just print the lithophane separate from the frame and it turns out quite well.  Here is a video:

I am happy to share any of the code or you can just upload a photo and order one of these on our etsy store:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/familyheART

I wife has challenged me to do something similar with a heart for valentines day.  That should be fun.

- Dirk

Lithophanes

I saw my first 3D printer when I was visiting the University of Notre Dame.  It was over 10 years ago, it was fairly expensive to operate and it printed in a kind of expensive wax.

Anyway, this was the first time I saw a lithophane.  It was a picture of Marilyn Monroe that just popped out if you held it so up to a light so that it is backlit.  It was just so cool that I really wanted to make some Lithophanes when I got my 3D printer.

Once I finally found some time I did some research and there were a few programs on the web which would make lithophanes for me.

http://maker.dongguk.edu/webclient/cylinder_litho_index.html
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:74322

I tried a few but nothing excited me so I just wrote one myself.   I am very pleased with the results:

If you just want a lithophane, we added them to my wife's etsy store:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/familyheART

If you already have a printer I am happy to send you the MATLAB code to generate these for yourself.  However, I must warn you that it is not very robust and I am reluctant to post it until I can add a bunch of error checking and a little better user interface.  It's also written in MATLAB, ideally I would like to change to something like Python but I am just quicker working with MATLAB.

Learning to use a sewing and embroidering machine

We are trying to turn our basement into a mini makerspace for the kids.  Quite a few years ago my wife bought a fancy sewing machine that does embroidery which I thought would make a fun addition.  My eldest daughter and I got playing with the machine and it is quite amazing.  In no time at all we were able to embroider a bow and make a cute little pillow.  I look forward to seeing what we will make next time.

- Dirk

Fairy House

Over the summer we spent some time up at our Aunt and Uncle's cottage.  Kids were picking up a lot of nature detritus to "keep" and my wife got the idea to make a Fairy House.  Turned out to be a really fun project.  I particularly like the paper lantern made from an old hornet's nest and the ladder.  The trick seems to be start with the big stuff and keep filling in the details until it looked right.  

- Dirk

Fish Tank Kids Coat Rack

This one was a lot of fun.  We have a coat area down by the back door landing.  I used those plastic hooks with the special double sided tape that allows you to remove the hooks without damaging the wall.  Unfortunate, the kids managed to pull the hooks off taking some paint and drywall with them. 

Anyway my plan was to print put some new hooks using my 3D printer.  I thought this would be the "cheap" way to  go.  I let my imagination get away with me and ended up with something a little more expensive but also something unique.

The design is quite simple and consists of two hooks I found on thingiverse; a fish:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:242736 

And a round hook or bubble:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:52764

The overall affect is a fish tank with a bunch of fish skeletons swimming around.

The design is a little odd bit visually appealing and has a ton of places for the kids to hand stuff.

- Dirk

Vacation fort

We are spending time with the kids at our aunt and uncle's cabin in northern Michigan.  This is an old hunting cabin but it is not exactly roughing it.  There is air conditioning and internet.  

I am worried that the kids are spending too much time inside on the devices.  At some point yestuday I banned the devices and told my eldest to go out and build a fort:

She found some old ladders ready for the burn pile and built from there.

The fort turned out really well.  It is surprisingly strong and all of the kids are proud of what they built.

It is also a fun place to picknick lunch out of the hot afternoon sun.

- Dirk

Bug bots

I like the simple fun of bushbots; little robots, typically made with toothbrush heads, that use a cell phone vibrating motor to scoot around a table (you can buy kits here: http://www.makershed.com/products/brushbots).  I decided that this would be a great project for me to do with my kids.  Step one was to find the parts.

1. Cell phone motors (pack of 50). 
2. Batteries. Large pack ordered on amazon: http://amzn.com/B0043SAFK0
3. Glue
4. Double sided tape
5. Toothbrushes

Between the motors and batteries, the price per brushbot was getting expensive.  So Instead of buying a bunch of toothbrushes I decided to see if I could print the body instead.  I came across the following design on thingiverse that did exactly what I wanted:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:68968

I ended up using only the "legs" and the body.  I also think it was also better to assemble the body upside down. In any case, I was able to print out these three parts and just let the kids assemble them using superglue:

Then we had to strip the wires for the motor (probably the trickiest part) and remove the sticker cover on the motor to stick it to the "bug".  

Add small pieces of double sided tape and lay down one of the wires on the tape. Then have the kids stick the battery on top of the tape and use a second piece of tape to secure the top wire. 

At this point the bug bots should start dancing.  We used an upside down paper plate as a "sumo" rink to see which bug bot could stay on the longest.  

Overall this activity was easily complete in 15 minutes and the kids had something to take home with them.  Special thanks to ekaggrat at thingiverse for posting his 3D designs which made this project possible.

- Dirk