Cathal Garvey issued a challenge on the Thingiverse list a few hours ago, "Mouse get!" The challenge is to build a humane mouse trap that can be printed on a Makerbot, and that will trap a mouse and keep him in!

Uploaded here is my attempt at designing such a trap. I'm printing it now, and will test it once it's fully printed (in a few hours.) It's not the most material efficient design, but I think it should foot the bill for a maximum security mouse trapping and storage facility. In fact, if you print it out of PLA, I'm willing to bet that this trap would stand up to a mouse wielding heavy artillery (heavy for a mouse, that is.)

The idea is that when the mouse steps on the ramp, the support will be pulled away and the trap will close quite tightly. I tried to build it myself, but the bottom piece failed part of the way through because of some issues I'm having with my bot.

I saw the pictures of the Valentine's day "sneak peak" on the NYC resistor blog, and knew that I had to make a LED heart out of PLA. (Sort of like the acrylic one here: nycresistor.com/2010/02/10/a-little-valentines-day-sneak-peek/) Obviously mine has a bit of a different form factor, and the plastic isn't transparent, but I think it's pretty nonetheless.

The battery compartment is a little large, but whatever. As long as you tape the LED leads to the battery it won't jostle around much.

Update: I changed the scad and stl files so that both halves of the battery compartment are on the same side when the heart is put together (thanks to owenscenic for pointing this out!) I also decreased the size of the pegs so that hopefully it won't take any drilling and/or filing to get it to fit together.

Disclaimer: the pictures are photoshopped a smidgen. Because the LED I used is so bright, my camera interpreted the middle of the heart as being yellow, and the picture wasn't as vibrant as I had hoped. So I changed it.

The title is only a half truth, and I left it that way because I have a feeling that no one would take this thing seriously if I didn't fib a little bit. In fact, I even think it's a little absurd, but I try to upload everything I create.

This pepper shaker is made using a toilet paper tube.

I needed to make a pepper shaker for an English project. It's a long story, but I needed something that would model the pepper shaker in this video: vimeo.com/hd#7306490 I decided that the best way to do this was to use a toilet paper tube, and create an insert for both ends that would seal one side and "do the salt and pepper shaker thing" on the other side. I'm quite satisfied with the results.

Notes:

-This fits the toilet paper tubes I had lieing around, but I'm not sure if it's a standard size. I actually had to add some duct tape around the edges, but I scaled up the STL by 1mm so it should be good to go.
-I don't necessarily recommend using this as an actual pepper shaker. Despite the issues about ABS (http://blog.thingiverse.com/2009/09/13/for-foodies-out-there/), there are also issues with how sanitary the inside of the toilet paper tube in question is. I would expect most toilet paper holders to be pretty clean, but it's something to think about.
-The hole in the center filled with ABS, but the shaker still works really nicely. And yes, one of the square holes is not perfectly even, but oh well. I'll fix it later.
-Don't judge. One does what one must to do to pass one's courses.

At last, the symbol of Star Trek is on Thingiverse! I created this because a friend of mine wanted to dress up as a character from Star Trek, and didn't have the appropriate gear. The clothes are pretty easy to find, but the badge isn't so simple to get a hold of... or at least it wasn't.

The stl seems to skeinforge weirdly, which probably has something to do with the way I joined the two pieces of the badge. Having printed it I can attest to the fact that it prints very well, despite the perilous overhang, which leaves plenty of room for any small electronic bits you might want to insert and try to make the badge do something cool.

Sorry for the rendered image - I haven't printed one out for myself yet.

I'm debugging my newly built Cupcake CNC, and I wanted a small object that would give me a way to test changes to the bot and to skeinforge. I wanted a simple test that would take as little of my precious ABS as possible. So I created das kleine Testmaenchen, or the little test man. Why in German? Because it sounds more awesome in German. (Thanks to Zaggo for correcting my German)

It's a quick, 2 minute build, and it takes under 1cc of ABS.

This is a mounting bracket designed for attaching things to walls. I tried to make it relatively strong and look half decent. The edges could be rounded, the support could go to the middle of the "shelf" rather than the end of it, and the lip at the end could look less awkward, but it should at least be functional.

There are two versions. One has holes in the top and the bottom, as well as another hole in the support so you can actually get to the hole in the bottom with a drill. I'm a little Blender-challenged, especially when it comes to measurements, so I don't know the exact diameter of the holes, but I was aiming for about 3mm. That should be about the size of your standard dry-wall screw. The other version has no holes in case my estimation was totally off, if you want to use another size screw, scale the model up and use the same size screw, or whatever.

It bothers me when ubiquitous parts, such as motors, must be bought. Hobbyists make tiny motors for RC planes etc, but they require fairly specific custom parts. I tried to design similar parts so that they are more easily available.

I decided on a brushless design because it seemed like it would be easier to print, and because after some research it seemed that it is harder to design a reliable brush motor than a reliable brushless one. A lot of my inspiration/information came from this page: flyelectric.ukgateway.net/cdrom.htm, and it would probably be helpful for assembling the printed parts as well.

I'm a little out of my league here so I have no idea if this will work, but it's worth a shot. I don't know how many people want to actually print a motor and spend the time winding and preparing it rather than just going out and buying it, but maybe it could be useful.

For some bizarre reason the entire center has a bunch of non-manifold holes, which I really don't understand (I selected the vertices one at a time and created the faces individually). I suspect this has something to do with the fact that I created the stator by connecting multiple objects together, but I don't know how to fix it. I'd really appreciate if someone could help me out here. I'll post the .blend file as well in case that helps.

What personal hygiene item might you need in a hurry and want to print out of plastic? That's right: a comb. I could find no combs on Thingiverse; this situation needed to be remedied. It's my first model in Blender, so it's a little bit ugly, but probably functional. I would appreciate any suggestions or criticisms you have to offer.

Note: I don't have a Makerbot/3D printer (yet), so I haven't actually printed it, but it looked alright in skeinforge.

Update: The corners have now been rounded out a bit, and the model has been enlarged a bit so that skeinforge can print the teeth more easily.