This shape is a world record holder you need 20 tiles before it will tile the plane periodically (10 up to symmetry). It fits together in an amazing variety of ways but can easily block itself. Making it a fun puzzle.

The tiles were found by a massive computer search by Joseph Myers. Look for this and other puzzling shapes at: srcf.ucam.org/~jsm28/tiling/

The idea to make physical tiles was originally from Chaim Goodman-Strauss: mathbun.com

Can this shape tile the plane? It is not easy to guess by just putting the shapes together. With a little thought however there is an easy proof. It can't. How far can it go though? How many rings of tiles can you build around a first one. This is called the Heesch number of the tiling.

This is the frame vertex from the mendel. i just imported the stl in to pepakura and unfolded it

This edge lock system for paper and plastic works great for realizing meshes from thin sheets of material. It avoids the negative accumulated error common with the classic glue and tab method of construction. Instead the edges have enough freedom to adjust towards the perfect position.

Look here for more examples:
shadowfolds.com/SlideTab
flickr.com/photos/shadowfolds/sets/72157625779410170/

With Snowmageddon, Snowpocalypse and Snowzilla wreaking havoc on Chicago, I said SnOMG! and thought this may be a fitting upload. I've always wanted snowshoes for such occasions. Luckily, work has been cancelled today, so I wont have to walk in this blizzard, but I am looking for a fun project to do while i'm home.

These are low polygon snowshoes, now you can't print them out with a 3D printer, but you can print them out on a 2D printer with a papercraft program called Pepakura Designer. It allows you to make 3D objects out of paper.

Now, you're saying what good are paper snowshoes? Well, not good at all... until you fiberglass them and fill them with your choice of filler, like casting resin. So, the next big snow storm I'll be ready!

I left some areas of the shoe open for cloth covering and as you can see it has some good crampon spikes for grip.

I also contemplated making sheet metal snowshoes and even laser cut wood snowshoes, maybe someone else can give that a try.

From the picture you can see the garage is pretty well snowed in.

I also added the object file & STL if you want to unfold it yourself or do something else with it.

For Thing-A-Day 2011 I'm doing a 1D (writing) vs 2D (visual design) vs 3D (3D modeling) Throwdown!

TAD D1 I completed a chapter of a novella that emerged from an observation about an inchworm. Hmmm, inchworms are interesting....

That night, I checked on Thingiverse -- there were no caterpillars yet! (Snakes, and Snakestas, yes.) So for D2 I cycled from "1D" (prose writing) to "2D" (drawing) and sketched out this caterpillar based on a bunch of photo references. Additional challenge -- to make this drawing fit for the MakerBot Unicorn (so path-only, no fill shading) and force myself to use my clunky old Wacom tablet instead of resorting to a mouse (which is typically what I do).

Now, that I can focus on doing lots of Unicorn illustrations this month is thanks to the incredible work Marty has done to take Scribbles (from Hoeken) and the Eggbot tools -- and create an Inkscape-to-Gcode tool that allows me to skip at least five painful steps of processing.

As a bonus, as I stuck with scribbling this whole thing out within Inkscape and didn't have pstoedit or similar to erase the history of my drawing, this item plots in the order of strokes that I created. So if you print this thing you will be watching me draw it, only via a robot.

Tomorrow for D3 I will be cycling forward to "3D" (3D modeling) and will either attempt to create an elaborate 3Dtin model that is awesome and beautiful, or jump into Sketchup, Alibre, or OpenSCAD to bring more caterpillars to Thingiverse.

I created these logos so I could film one for a new "production title" logo for the Gothic Cathedral Play Set Time Lapse video I was putting together. And they really are fun to watch print.

These are also good simple examples of using Dan Newman's Inkscape hatch fill extension in combination with schmarty's Unicorn G-Code Extension for Inkscape.

I have been experimenting with mixing various techniques to create tone for MakerBot Unicorn pen plotting, taking advantage of schmarty's "Unicorn G-Code Extension for Inkscape?" (http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5986) and dnewman's "Inkscape hatch fill extension." This pigeon will be part of a bookart project I'm working on -- and I will continue to experiment with forms of hatching and crosshatching to give this little drawing tone and dynamics.

It's just one of those days....

This item was designed for the "cutbag" competition - see blog.makerbot.com/2011/03/14/twotimes-design-challenge-cardboard-bags/

The object is commentary designed to draw attention to the ways in which our technology is increasingly constructed with "features" beyond our control. The specific "feature" this object draws attention to is the EURion constellation - secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/EURion_constellation - an anti-counterfeiting pattern printed onto many modern currencies that is recognized by various pieces of software and colour copiers etc, causing them to refuse to print or copy the e.g. bank note in question. Now, counterfeiting is clearly something that should be discouraged, but I am a bit troubled by the increasingly prevalent idea that if I ask my technology to do something for me, it must first check with e.g. the government to see if it's OK. This is an area of increasing importance to the 3D printing community as well - imagine a world where all 3D printers were legally required to check in with a central repository before every run to make sure your print doesn't infringe someone's IP or security concern. Sounds ridiculous now, but in ten years, there will be people advocating for that...

So anyway, by exposing the design both to direct viewing, and by functioning (in a limited way) as a privacy-protection device (presumably photos of you carrying this will not print on certain devices / with certain software) this object will hopefully spark discussion around this issue. Meanwhile, it may also function in a limited way as a digital "opt-out" for collection of your personal image in some contexts.

Attributions - inspired by this: martinbackes.com/new-artwork-pixelhead/
and the EURion constellation was taken from the public-domain image found here: secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:EURion.svg

Update 2011.03.19: Added file body3.pdf - same as original file, but includes the QR code for this page.

Update 2011.04.04: Added an image. The laser cutter has temporarily gone away, so in the interim this is a bonsai version cut out by hand, but I did use the posted design files...

This was a project I worked on years ago, before Bre and co brought 3d printing to the masses. The idea was to create a number of parts that could be printed on cardstock using a typical inkjet printer and assembled into working mechanical systems. I created the models in 3d Studio and used Tenkai (which is now Pepakura) to generate the printable patterns. Cardstock is remarkably strong at small scales, and the results are pretty durable for being paper.

This particular item is a set of 45 degree bevel gears that can be used to change the direction of rotation of a shaft by 90 degrees.

Spent the past week doing a quick and dirty model of the Master Chief from Halo CE. I've spent way to much time looking at this model. I love you Bungie but i Also hate the triangle count you made me use with this model.

More detailed model to come. As time allows.

EDIT:
the more detailed model it set as MK V for Detailing 2.

BACKGROUND: I have operated daisey-designs.com since 2003 to sell card models that I have designed. However, I have many more models designed than are on that site, ones that are either not-quite-complete, or I never got around to putting build instructions together. It's been several years since I've done any appreciable work on my models, and I've come to the conclusion it's not going to happen soon, if ever. But plenty of talented folks could still get some enjoyment out of what I have done, and I don't want to see all the work go down the tubes, so I'm going to try releasing some of my stuff as CC and see what happens. So, have at it, enjoy, and share!

This model is a 1/3 scale replica of a rubber-powered model airplane called the "Moth," published in 1937 in Flying Aces magazine and popular ever since due to simple construction and good performance. Model design should be complete, just no instructions.

BACKGROUND: I have operated daisey-designs.com since 2003 to sell card models that I have designed. However, I have many more models designed than are on that site, ones that are either not-quite-complete, or I never got around to putting build instructions together. It's been several years since I've done any appreciable work on my models, and I've come to the conclusion it's not going to happen soon, if ever. But plenty of talented folks could still get some enjoyment out of what I have done, and I don't want to see all the work go down the tubes, so I'm going to try releasing some of my stuff as CC and see what happens. So, have at it, enjoy, and share!

This model is a 1/24 scale replica of the 1935 version of SJ Wittman's "Chief Oshkosh" racing plane. Model design is close to complete, but may need a few tweaks for fit. Also, no build notes or instructions, but it's not terribly complex.