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

Youth and 3D Printing Design Challenges

Knowth Mace Head recreated by Cole in Tinkercad and printed by Stratasys.

A globe of cranes created by Emily in Tinkercad and printed by Stratasys.

It is an exciting time to be entering the 3D design space in K-12 education as there are so many opportunities now for youth. I began teaching Tinkercad and 3D printing in November of 2013 (when I purchased my Afinia 3D printer off of Craigslist) and I have enlisted both my children to assist me in teaching the workshops I have taught in museum and library spaces. When I learned of the Stratasys Extreme Redesign Challenge, I asked my kids if they wanted to apply and I shared this design challenge with their teachers.

It was wonderful and exciting news to find out that both Cole and Emily ended up in the top 10 in the Art & Architecture category of the design challenge for 2014. There were over 600 entrants from 12 nations. This is the 10th year of the Stratasys Extreme Redesign Challenge.

Cole with his Knowth Mace Head design in Tinkercad.

reference image of Knowth Mace head from Irish Archaeology .

Cole's mace head being designed in Tinkercad. He made some pieces in Illustrator and imported these into Tinkercad as .svg files.

Knowth Mace Head created by Cole Takara in Tinkercad.

Emily with a paper crane she made that inspired the 3D designed ones she created in Tinkercad.

"World of Peace" created in Tinkercad by Emily Takara.

The design challenge required a written component. Below are the statements for Cole and Emily's designs.

Cole’s statement for Knowth Mace Head:

“Ireland has a very interesting history beginning in the Neolithic Ages, and last summer I got to see it first-hand.  In Ireland there were a lot of amazing sites and things to see, but by far the most interesting was what archaeologists have uncovered about Ireland's past. Archaeologist have found many Neolithic works, ranging from flint arrowheads to the giant Neolithic tombs like Newgrange.  Archeologists have made some amazing discoveries in Ireland, not in the least the Knowth Mace Head. The Knowth Mace Head is a piece of flint carven into a small face. Nobody knows what it was for although archaeologists believe it was used for religious practices. Amazingly, archaeologist think that these early Neolithic people actually use a primitive drill to make intricate swirls on the surface.  

Inspired by the brilliance of these early people, I decided to make my own version of this early artwork using modern day technology like 3D designing. Using a free cloud website called Tinkercad and Adobe Illustrator, I was able to create my best impression of this early art piece using modern day technology. It was so cool to interpret with modern 21st Century tools something originally designed with early Neolithic technology. This piece to me symbolizes technology throughout the epochs of history.”

Emily’s statement for a World of Peace:

“This object represents the story of a Japanese girl named Sadako and the thousand paper cranes she tried to make. Sadako got leukemia in World War II when a bomb fell near her house, and she got placed in the hospital. Sadako was intent on living so she started to make paper cranes. She wanted to make 1,000 paper cranes because she believed in the old Japanese legend that the gods would heal anyone who made 1,000 paper cranes.

She only made 644 paper cranes before she died, but I think Sadako showed great strength and inspired others. In her own personal struggle she symbolized the need of worldwide peace. I think she symbolizes that peace on earth is better than war and fighting. She was spreading her own message of peace, too. Sadako is a true figure of peace.

My paper cranes are in a sphere because the sphere represents the Earth and Sadako spreading the message of peace around the world. I believe that 3D printing is an example of very new technology that could be used to help injured or special people. This new technology could also be used for bad things. The memory and message of Sadako can help us focus on using 3D printing for good uses.”

Emily and Cole