April 1st Brownies

An oldie but a goodie with a modern twist. This year I printed out the letter E on my 3D printer using Brown PLA plastic.

Then I put the Brown E's in a baking pan:

Cover with aluminum foil and tell the kids I made brownies for them.

The were a little disappointed but then quickly got into the spirit of the day and played the same joke on their mom and nanny.  I even took some "sugar free" brownies into the dentist with me and gave some to my brother and his house mates.  

Happy April fools day.

- Dirk

3D Cookie Cutter app comparison

My oldest daughter is in her second year of Brownies.  My wife and I volunteered to lead a couple of their meetings with a maker theme.  I thought the 3D printer is always a hit and what better project for girl scouts than cookies (yes I realize this is cliche but it is still fun).  I did some searching on the internet and came up with a variety of ways the girl scouts could design cookie cutters.  However, I had a checklist of desires and none of them quite made the "cut" (I will stop now).  Here is what I was looking for:

1. An option to upload and trace a picture. This is necessary because I do not have enough computers for the group. I saw a similar activity at the Detroit Maker Faire and I thought hand drawn images would be more natural.
2. Ability to add both internal and external features on the cookies. What I would really like is two layers so the cutters could imprint on the cookie as well as cut through the cookie. 
3. Ideally an online app so I do not have to download anything.  
4. Obviously an easy way to output stl files I could use with my printer.

CookieCaster: http://www.cookiecaster.com/#editor
Online app for drawing outline of cookie cutters.  This makes for a fun group project because you can scan and upload hand drawings into the editor and trace them.  The downside is that this editor only does a cookie outline and not the insides. Here is an example we did:

Cookie Cutter Editor: http://www.local-guru.net/blog/pages/cookiecutter-editor
Downloadable cookie cutter editor. Uses a programming language called processing (written in java).  I could not get the MacOS stand alone version to work so I tried to download processing and run the source directly.  Still was missing some libraries so I gave up on it.  Looking at the examples I do not think it would work much better than CookieCaster and could not get any of the internal details I wanted anyway.

Thingiverse: http://www.thingiverse.com/apps/customizer/run?thing_id=116042&code=2633da7762519236fd52412f6c8bf143

Thingiverse has one of their customizable apps.  This one was really nice because it could do some internal details. Seems to only have one height but having details is better than the other two.  However, this app also only had an option for online editing and no way to upload a picture.  It was also a difficult interface to master.  For example, it does not handle overlapping editing very well and was particularly hard to get right with my laptop's touchpad.  Here is an examples we made:

http://www.thingiverse.com/apps/customizer/run?thing_id=116042

Although none of the apps seem like they would work, none of them really fit all of my criteria.  I am going to have the girl scouts use Cookie Caster since it is the one that works with pictures. Please stay tuned for future blog posts with details highlights from the girl scout projects.

- Dirk

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