3D Printing Mobile Cart out on the street

Last Sunday my son and I had a blast engaging the public in 3D printing via our mobile cart. We stationed ourselves next to Roy's Station in San Jose's Japantown during the Nikkei Matsuri festival and printed out netsuke. Here is a link to our photos and an article in the Mercury News mentioned our 3D printing pop-up event.

Synapse Tapestry

completed sculpture

Over the past few days I have been completing this tapestry sculpture for a neurological research center in Boston. I shipped it off today in a bicycle box. To fit the 5ft x 4ft piece into the bicycle box, I designed the sculpture to separate into sections that snap and hook together. I have two more tapestries to make in this series.

part of assembly instructions

Detail of 3D printed element on sculpture.

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.

Netsuke 3D printing with a mobile maker cart

On April 27th we will be bringing a 3D printing mobile maker cart to Japantown in San Jose and setting up next to Roy's Station on 5th and Jackson. We will be 3D printing small objects, Japanese netsuke, for the public (free). A laptop will also be set up for visitors who wish to explore designing their own netsuke in Tinkercad. Here is a past blog posting on this project.

Cherry blossom design created in Tinkercad.

Mouse netsuke created and shared in Tinkercad.

Sketch for the pop up event's T-shirt design. by Cole (14 yrs old)

With the help of Melinda Po, I conducted a trial run of printing from the cupcake maker cart on site in Japantown, San Jose.

Glow in the dark cherry blossom printed from maker cart.

Mayo Clinic Butterfly Installation

I just received a few photo of the butterfly sculptures installed at the Mayo Clinic Cancer Care Center. This was a lovely project to work on. The butterfly forms echo butterflies found in Minnesota: the Tiger Swallowtail and the Gray Comma. Here are some postings on the process of creating these pieces, early sketches , and a preliminary small model.

Mixed media butterfly sculptures installed at Cancer Care Center, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.

Another view of butterflies installed