While browsing a recent issue of Make magazine, I found a list of CNC projects that caught my eye. In particular, the wood and aluminum bottle opener appeared to be ripe for customization with a bit of laser etching. The first step was to determine what art to use for the laser etching. With the approaching departure of a longtime colleague, I decided to go for a bit of robot art to make the opener into a personalized going away gift.
We are very happy to report a second successful year of Maker Camp in Palm Beach! In 2013, Palm Beach LED held the first and only Maker Camp in Florida and nearly in the entire Southeastern United States. In 2014, there was an explosion of Maker Camps across the state, and we were thrilled to see such an increase in local Maker activity!
Palm Beach LED gave an ‘Introduction to 3D printing’ presentation at the Jupiter library on June 25th. It was great to see so many community members interested in this technology and asking lots of questions! Thank you to the Jupiter library for inviting us to speak and for hosting this event!
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The past few years have seen impressive changes in the quadrotor field, both in availability of powerful and sophisticated components for hobbyists and in the quality of research at various universities. After recently discovering an interesting looking 3D printable quadrotor frame on Thingiverse called Hovership, I decided it was high time to have a go at building my own. Continue reading…
After a year or so of tinkering with and learning about 3D printing, there are a few applications I have come across which stood out as being particularly unique or interesting. I have included a brief description of each below along with links where you can find more information if you are interested in trying them for yourself. Continue reading…
I was looking for an excuse to teach myself how to use Tinkercad a few months ago and that excuse conveniently presented itself in the form of the Palm Beach LEDlaunch event. Continue reading…
A few months ago, after having built the Printrbot Simple, I was browsing the Printrbottalk forums and came across a rather interesting post by JohnSL. John had modified the RichRap 3DR design to allow it to be built with the components available from the Printrbot Simple. Specifically, the design reused the most valuable components from the Simple: four stepper motors, the Printrboard and Ubis hotend. Continue reading…
Last year, shortly after building my first 3D printer, I came across a tweet from Printrbot about an opportunity to test a new printer called the Printrbot Simple. The Simple was particularly attractive because it was small enough to be portable and it was only $250 for complete a beta tester kit.
Looking for #printrbot_simple beta testers w/ photo & video skills. It won’t be free, but you will be first. Watch for sign up at Printrbot
— Printrbot (@printrbot) April 26, 2013
Shortly after becoming completely fascinated with 3D printing last year, I decided to get a printer to use at home. After a bit of research, I settled on the RepRapPro Tricolour Mendel kit. The features and machine specifications were on par with other machines available at the time, but the Tricolour Mendel featured the ability to have three extruders and hotends installed. This would allow multi-color or multi-material prints without pausing mid-print to swap out materials.
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The first time I saw a 3D printer was at the 2012 Orlando Mini Maker Faire. Among the many interesting projects and technologies on display at the Faire were a number of hand built 3D printers. They seemed cool at the time, but didn’t stand out any more than the quadcopters, dancing robots or other technologies that I had read about on various websites and was now was seeing in person for the first time. I didn’t know it then, but I had just been introduced to a new hobby that would lead me to build three of my own 3D printers, run a Maker Camp session to teach 3D printing to local kids and launch an initiative to bring a Makerspace to Palm Beach county.
