I designed this toy car after seeing another one, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:9710, that had been printed by a friend of mine who worked at MakerBot and I was fascinated that 3D printers could print fully captured mechanical parts. I became obsessed with figuring out how to replicate that feat and also convinced that I wanted to try to get a job at a 3D printing company.
I designed the car in Blender 3D (which I'd learned because I wanted to figure out how to make video games or animated movies). I remember that it took me a long time because I wasn't used to having to design thinking about overhangs and minimum wall thicknesses.
The first copy of my car was printed by my friend so I could bring it to an interview and then after I got hired it was the first thing I posted to Thingiverse! I didn't know about tolerances when I was designing the first car so the first prints had the wheels fused to the wheel-wells. I did a quick update and the second attempt came out perfect! Afterwards, I figured out how to separate the parts to turn it into a 2-material print, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:22679, and I also got feedback that other people had trouble printing it. That's when I fixed my first non-manifold error :) Later, I updated it to be a fully parametric design when Customizer got released: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:42978
I'm still totally obsessed with designs that have captured mechanical parts and I'm always looking for interesting uses for that kind of design.
The first thing I ever printed is also the first thing I designed for 3d printing: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:21214
I designed this toy car after seeing another one, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:9710, that had been printed by a friend of mine who worked at MakerBot and I was fascinated that 3D printers could print fully captured mechanical parts. I became obsessed with figuring out how to replicate that feat and also convinced that I wanted to try to get a job at a 3D printing company.
I designed the car in Blender 3D (which I'd learned because I wanted to figure out how to make video games or animated movies). I remember that it took me a long time because I wasn't used to having to design thinking about overhangs and minimum wall thicknesses.
The first copy of my car was printed by my friend so I could bring it to an interview and then after I got hired it was the first thing I posted to Thingiverse! I didn't know about tolerances when I was designing the first car so the first prints had the wheels fused to the wheel-wells. I did a quick update and the second attempt came out perfect! Afterwards, I figured out how to separate the parts to turn it into a 2-material print, http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:22679, and I also got feedback that other people had trouble printing it. That's when I fixed my first non-manifold error :) Later, I updated it to be a fully parametric design when Customizer got released: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:42978
I'm still totally obsessed with designs that have captured mechanical parts and I'm always looking for interesting uses for that kind of design.