When knitting intarsia or fair isle, yarn bobbins are used to hold a small amount of yarn without getting tangled.

They're commercially available fairly inexpensively, but I never have one around when I need it. Additionally, it's 102 degrees Farenheight out today, and I have no interest in leaving the house in search of one. So I printed it!

It's sized for worsted weight yarn, so if you're working with something thinner you may want to make the notch on the top a little narrower. Alternately, you can print it as-is and smoosh the tang in a bit while the plastic is still hot.

A single-digit split-flap display, like the displays in old train stations. Rig it up to a stepper motor and you'll have yourself a low-power retro-cool display. This Thing doesn't include any controlling electronics. Big ups to Metrix Create:Space, where this was designed and made.

A (semi-parametric) tie holder.
I redid the design in openscad, so it's semi customizable now.

The design as laid out is for a 8mm diameter rod; the hook itself has a 10mm diameter, which lets it slide easily but doesn't let it unhook without force.

This is a simple little massager that fit in the palm of your hand with 3 raised bumps to help work out tight muscles.

I get cramps in my legs so something to help work the muscles out a bit will be very useful.

I decided to make my own filament guides for my RapMan, since the tape solution was not permanent.

Please share images of your printed copies!

This is a calendar that you can reuse over and over again. Each month, just pop out the tiles and set them in place for the new month. You should mount this in a frame or something with an incline, as nothing but gravity keeps the tiles from coming out while it's in use.

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.

All the world is a theater and you, with shades, will riff upon it. Seeing the humor in things is sometimes a matter of the company you keep. Laughing at all the world's ills becomes so much easier with Mike/Joel and the bots along for the ride.

You know you want me, baby!
Take a look at some photos of this thing in action: flickr.com/photos/gianteye/sets/72157622837429705/

I've designed form for casting silicone button pad. They have exact same dimensions as buttons on monome. Now I have to do few more tries to avoid some errors but Itll be great. Designed in OpenSCAD and its parametrized, so you can generate as big form as you want :-) there is a room for LED inside button, just like in button pad from Sparkfun etc.

It works, but the feel of pressing isn't same as on the monome, I've updated design a little and it should be better now.

If you have vacuum chamber you are lucky and you can have bubble free cast :-)

I've tried to embed some conductor when casting, but it wasn't great idea. Next time > cast and then glue the conductor :-) (in this case simple aluminium foil) >>> any tip for better and easier conductor??

Faceplate and PCB for this button pad is on the way too!! I'm looking forward to print my own MONOME!!

A battery holder design for cutting perfect battery/LED clips out of acrylic. Intended for use in 3mil laser-cut acrylic for edgelit projects.

Designed for an upcoming robotics competition at WPI in which the robots must "improve quality of life" in some way:

Bloombot is an open-source automated hydroponics system that aims to build community and increase the engagement of people with their food. Bloombot is capable of growing plants like lettuces and herbs throughout the year and, through use of Twitter integration hopes to build off the work of other products (like AeroGrow and Botanicalls) to integrate some of their functionality to produce a machine that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Still working on finishing up the parts list but it's almost complete.

a swing made from scrap cardboard using a laser cutter

The stencil I used for my "Giraffe" Makerbot
thingiverse.com/derivative:328

uploaded for Isis

How do you make a great idea like Makerbot-printable (clothing) buttons better?

Why, make them Lego Compatible! Naturally.

Update 2009/10/04: In the design files, the knobs are 5mm in diameter. I remeasured my source Lego disc after getting back some Shapeways test prints and the Lego knobs are actually closer to 4.8mm in diameter. I lucked out with my MakerBot-printed buttons; shrinkage brought them down to about 4.9mm in diameter. The Shapeways printed versions are more accurate, 5.00mm diameter, +/- 0.05mm. There's enough give in the plastic materials for them to still fit 'regulation size' lego blocks, but the metal one was simply too wide a diameter.

Update 2009/11/07: I've been playing around with OpenSCAD (http://www.openscad.org/) and came up with the attached DiscButton_20091107 variation. I even added bottom "sockets" to this variation. It's almost too easy when it's all code!

Disclaimer: LEGO is a trademark of the LEGO Group and these explorations are in no way associated with LEGO Group. Heck! The files are CC-licensed; nothing to stop them embracing and extending it themselves if they so chose! ;-)

You've heard of Bokode web.media.mit.edu/~ankit/bokode/ , right? The long distance microscope that lets you see detailed barcodes and data with only a digital camera? The one that uses a tiny 3mm lenslet to display highly accurate position and distance information from several meters away?

Yeah. That one.

Here is a simple 3D puzzle. My grandpa made me one out of wood a while back, now I cnc'ed one out of plastic. You don't really need a CNC machine to do this; you can use a bandsaw, scroll saw, small coping saw, drill etc. The design of the pieces are simple.

"Brass" Knuckles made with ABS plastic using a Makerbot and Blender.

You've probably heard the story about the artist who wore mirrored goggles flipping his vision upside down for a few days. After a while his brain also flipped correcting his perspective. When he finally took off the glasses at the end of the experiment he found that his own native vision was upside down. Cool eh?

Here's a chance to try. The mechanism of these is articulated by looking down into the mirrored panel. You see there a flipped version of the world. Unfortunately your cone of vision is pretty limited. It's intended to be laser cut on .11 mirrored acrylic (mirrored side down, please)which is often labeled as 1/8". You'll also need 4-40 shcs and nuts. Washers completely optional... I can't remember why I included them in the design.

A cute little flat pack spinning top that will be popular with little kids and big kids alike.

Feel free to send in actions shot if you make one!

This is a possibly-printable electric motor. The motor can be operated as a DC motor or a stepper motor, depending on how you set it up. We built the motor by casting plastic and metal parts, but most of the parts can probably be built with a laser cutter or a Reprap/Cupcake/Fab@home type machine. It runs at about 400rpm at a voltage of 6V and a current draw of 7A (yes, seven amps).

You can see a video of the motor in operation at
youtube.com/watch?v=XSAof007cS4

A video of the first prototype, which is easier to make, is at
youtube.com/watch?v=cHML3gVQ-uU

For more info, also check out our paper
Towards cyclic fabrication systems for modular robotics and rapid manufacturing, by M.S. Moses, H. Yamaguchi, and G.S. Chirikjian. Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems, June 2009.
custer.lcsr.jhu.edu/Publications#Robotic_Self-Replication

Before you try to make the motor, you should understand what it is and is not.

*It IS* An experimental design that you can build, try out, and hopefully improve so it does something useful for you.

*It IS NOT* An inexpensive alternative to an off-the-shelf motor. If you need a motor you can put in your project, go buy a motor. This motor is very inefficient, produces low output power, and takes a lot of work to build.

Do you use solder ?

This is a stackable solder spool holder. You can make one for each of your spools of solder, and then stack them up out of the way when you are done with them !

You will need, some 1/8" (3mm) acrylic, about 7.5" by 10" of colored, and about 3.5" x 3.5" or clear. Plus some rod. I use 5/8" wooden dowel cut a little bit shorter then 3 1/4".

If you don't have a laser cutter but would like a solder spool holder, you can get the kit at SpikenzieLabs.com/catalog.
Follow the link to Lasered Items.

This is a notch width test pattern, with notches cut into both sides from 0.100" to 0.150" wide in 0.01" steps. The idea, obviously, is to straddle the 1/8" or 0.125" nominal thickness of the material.

Since 0.01" should be on the same order of magnitude as the kerf (material lost to the laser's cut), I didn't think we needed more precision.