3D printing mobile maker cart prep work almost completed

T-shirt design by Cole for workshop

This coming Sunday my children and I will be engaging the public in 3D printing via a mobile maker cart in San Jose's Japantown. I am working on a website for the project as I will be engaging students in this activity in the coming school year. Here is the project site in the works. Here are the netsuke designs we have created in Tinkercad and hopefully more will be added to this collection on Sunday if visitors wish to explore making their own designs in Tinkercad.

Sample glow in the dark netsuke

It was very interesting to read information about netsuke on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nets/hd_nets.htm. I learned that because there was a great deal of regulation of Japanese clothing according to rank and station, the netsuke was a way for the rising merchant class to display their wealth. Since these small purse counterweights could be easily hidden, netsuke could be a whimsical outlet for themes and motifs that ran counter to the officially sanctioned cultural norms of the Edo period.