In no particular order:

1. Lomokino & Lomoscope (~$100, Lomography)
   I love the concept of this retro film movie making camera from Lomography that uses 35mm film stock to shot about 60 seconds of footage. Sure you can probably fake it with half a dozen iPhone apps but that’s not nearly as fun. Get the bundle as it comes with a projector as well.
   
   
2. Star Wars peppermill ($20, Think Geek)
   
   Think Geek has some of the coolest stuff that you won’t find anywhere else…and this R2D2 peppermill is one of those things. I recently got this for my birthday from my girlfriend and can confirm that Droids DO in fact make the best pepper.
   
   
3. Arduino! ($30-$100, multiple places)
   
   As regular readers here know, I’m a big fan of Arduino microprocessors and there are no shortage of fun projects and kits to check out, regardless of age or skill level. It’s also the brains of my 3D printers. SparkFun has a great starter kit, as does Solarbotics who also has a couple awesome robot platforms to put those microcontrollers to work. Adafruit also has some great kits and lots of other fun stuff. In Vancouver, you can get Arduinos from Lee’s Electronics on Main Street and they also have the SparkFun kits
   
   
4. A 3D Printer – ($500 and up)
   
   A little higher up the $ scale but I definitely know a few people that would love to unwrap a 3D printer. I’ve written extensively about my experiences with 3D printers. This is a kit from Mixshop in Toronto that is only missing the plastic printed parts which can be bought from ebay for around $75 (I also print/sell them). Definitely for those geeks that like to build things from kits and aren’t afraid of a little soldering. Of course you can also go the route I went and get a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic which is a bit easier to build with a higher price tag ($1,324) or you can spend a little more and get it fully assembled ($1,624). Not sure if MakerBot can deliver to Canada with their lead time + customs but the previous links are for Canadian reseller that has them in stock.
   
   
5. The F-Stop Watch ($35, PhotoJoJo)
   
   This is a pretty slick and inexpensive watch for any photographer. PhotoJoJo has lots of other great stuff for the photo geek.
   
   
   
6. Xshot Extendable Hand Held Monopod (~$25, multiple)
   
   I bought one of these a few years ago and they now have a newer version that is even more compact. I primarily use it with my GoPro to help me get above or below the action. It works with just about any kind of compact still or video camera, you know, when you’re ziplining through the trees in Whistler. Great for taking self portraits as well. I got mine at London Drugs but I can’t find it on their site but it’s definitely in stores. Photojojo also has them.
   
   
7. Gift Cards – (various)
   
   Don’t be afraid to give a gift card to a geek…if you know they have a favorite place to shop for their stuff, they’ll appreciate a gift card more than you trying to guess what they may need.

Happy shopping!

It’s an add on module (aka a shield) for the Arduino hardware platform. It basically gives the Arduino the missing bits of electronics to be a self contained 8-bit videogame platform including VGA and sound ports to connect to your tv or computer monitor and speakers. Needless to say, it was wildly successful as a Kickstarter project and is now available from a bunch of distributors around the world.

I received my own Gameduino (each is individually numbered and tested) in short time after the Kickstarter closed and immediately had Space Invaders up and running on it:

I had this arcade style controller from the original Xbox days in my garage and thought it would make the perfect ‘host’ for the Gameduino since it has a joystick and a lot of buttons already mounted in a sturdy, wooden box.

Fortunately, it was very easy to remove the Xbox controller portion and wire in the Arduino/Gameduino:

I was even able to mount it inside using an Arduino holder that I printed with my 3D printer:

There is already a large community of people playing with the Gameduino libraries and some really cool games and remakes are coming out. Like Frogger which is the basis of one of the game design tutorials:

I haven’t had nearly as much time as I had hoped to mess around with the Gameduino but I’ve got some fun ideas to use it for beyond playing Frogger.

and made a timelapse of the nearly 2 hour print process:

and then Cory Doctorow blogged about it on BoingBoing.net (thanks to Darren for submitting it).

Which then lead to my “A few weeks with a MakerBot…” post getting picked up by the Spanish version of Digg and over 30,000 hits in 24 hours to the post plus all kinds traffic to other posts and on Flickr.

Pretty cool couple of days around here.

Update: Check out what the guys at MakerBot did with their printed Colbert head:

So awesome!

Keep in mind these thoughts are based on my experience assembling and using a MakerBot Industries Thing-O-Matic (serial number 4190) in June/July 2011. Many things, like the assembly instructions wiki, can change as well as the iterative design and manufacturing process used to make the Thing-O-Matic (ToM for short). Your ToM may or may not resemble mine depending on when you bought it.

Yes, it’s as awesome as you think it is.
I get asked daily about my 3D printer…it’s pretty wild to blow people’s minds when you explain what a 3D printer is and show them samples (I usually carry a few prints with me)…and you will get asked if you need 3D glasses to view the printed objects.

I’ve been able to print some pretty complex objects…some with multiple hours of printing of multiple parts but the end results have been awesome. I’ve also been printing some very useful objects like this Arduino PCB holder which I used in a project that I’ll be posting about soon:

A few technical notes:

Automated Build Platform (ABP) versus the Heated Build Platform (HBP)
The idea of the ABP is awesome – you hit print, the bot prints your item and then ejects it via a conveyor belt. It’s like magic.

It really is a cool concept. Except it caused me a lot of grief. Why? Printing with plastic requires a print surface that will hold it in place as subsequent layers of plastic are applied. I found that the conveyor belt would cause the prints to rock back and forth as the print head went over them causing curling and warping around the edges. Or worse case, it would cause the print head to knock the print free and basically lose it’s place in the print.

After reading extensive forum and wiki posts about the various platforms, I opted to assemble the Heated Build Platform. I had already ordered the aluminum build plate so I used that along with the 2″ 3M blue painters tape as a top layer. The difference in print quality once up and running was astounding. I then ordered the 4″ Kapton super wide tape which single handedly made for the best prints as of yet. Objects stuck perfectly in place on the platform with no warping, curling or knocked loose prints. I REALLY wish the ABP worked as well as the Kapton tape surface did. It’s like night and day. The only downside is that it can be trickier to remove your prints once finished since they are stuck in place really well. Just make sure to let everything cool for at least 90 seconds before touching it.

If you get one piece of useful advice from me it’s this: skip the (current) ABP and go with the HBP with aluminum build surface covered in Kapton tape.

Does the colour of the ABS plastic matter when printing?
Along with my ToM, I excitedly ordered a 1kg spool of green 3mm ABS plastic. Army green is one of my favourite colours and couldn’t wait to print in that colour instead of natural ABS or something else. Unfortunately, it seems (to me) that it’s possibly one of the worst colours to print with. After getting the ToM all dialled in, I printed a few whistles in natural and green. The natural print looks almost perfect and solid. The green one showed more imperfections and the layer lines were much more obvious. My theory is that it has to do with the pigments used in the ABS filament but I have no idea. I wasn’t able to find any definitive listing or table of ABS colours and their optimal printing speed/temperature/etc. I just received some ‘safety orange‘ and ‘nuclear green‘ ABS filament and like the natural, the prints are near perfect using the default 225 degrees for the print head. I tried all kinds of temperature settings with the regular green and none made a difference.

Installing better lighting
One of the things that first attracted me to the MakerBots were the intense lights I’ve seen many of them have installed in them. I scoured the MakerBot site and couldn’t really find any specifics of ‘pimping out your bot’ but fortunately, Greg @ MakerBot.ca filled me on how it works. So I ordered a set of green LEDs.

Using the MakerBot LED light strips, I simply peeled the 3M tape backing off and stuck them in place around the inside top of the MakerBot. Unfortunately, there is practically no documentation about installing the leds so I had to figure it out for myself. The LEDs are 12V so I used one of the extra lines from the power supply that wasn’t being used. I also printed a button casing for a switch that drops into one of the unused holes on the top of the ToM that I’ll wire up next time I want/need to open the electronics bay (the bottom of the unit).

I also installed, using a mount that I printed, some LED lighting under the Z-Axis:

but have since removed it because the LEDs were too bright and would wash out any photos/video as well, the mount got in the way more often than I’d like when trying to either shoot or monitor the print process. I’ve ordered a meter of the LED light strips in white that I’ll mount in the front sides of the ToM and use that for more even lighting while making timelapse videos or shooting photos.

First thing you should print: some kind of spool management helper!
My ToM came with an unspooled (but coiled) pack of natural ABS. It worked great for awhile just sitting on my desk until I started doing some serious printing then it all went to hell. It uncoiled itself, rather violently on my desk and I wasn’t able to get it all tidy again until I had to cut it to untangle it. It can also cause damage to your printer if it has to work too hard to pull filament into the drive and I’ve had a few close calls – usually from not paying attention to the filament as it unspools.

Even the spooled ABS isn’t 100% trouble free. I had similar issues with it so I printed some spool holders that attach to the frame of the ToM and things are much more under control now. I’ve also printed a heavy duty filament spool for my unspooled filament which I used to wrangle the natural filament that I have and it works great and it gives me options for having lots of colour options on hand for printing.

So to wrap up this post, I’ll conclude by saying that I’m really enjoying my MakerBot. It really does seem like this is a technology just about to really take off. It’s not currently for everyone since it does require a lot of care and maintenance but for those willing to spend the effort, it’s very rewarding and a lot of fun. It’s been a fantastic learning opportunity for me as well.

I’ve got no shortage of objects that I want to print from the Thingiverse and I’m just starting to dabble in some of the 3D software packages out there for creating my own objects.

Can’t promise it will always be on but will try to record interesting prints and live stream as much as possible.

If you have any suggestions for better/free ‘webcasting/recording’ software that is Mac compatible, drop a comment as I’m not entirely happy with the UStream option. I’d like to at least record in HD if not broadcast in HD as well.

The big difference though is that HP has embraced this and even supports it’s development unlike someone else. WebOS has a large homebrew community and it appears to be quite vibrant…at least as far as the smartphones goes…it’s still very early days for the TouchPad.

Why would you want to ‘jailbreak’ your TouchPad?
To enable functionality that hasn’t yet made it to the official firmware and generally have more control over your device. The options this gives you is still in it’s infancy because the tablet only came out a few days ago but it’s already progressing at lightening speed.

The install process is quite similar on a PC or Linux but since I hacked mine with a Mac, this is what you get from me. There are a number of ways to get Preware on your Touchpad but I’m going to cover the WebOS Quick Install method that doesn’t require installing the SDK.

Let’s get started.Step 1: Enable Developer Mode
The first thing you need to do is enable Developer Mode on the TouchPad. I can’t believe that the way you do this is by simply performing a search in the “Just Type…” search box for the Konami code:

upupdowndownleftrightleftrightbastart

This will reveal a hidden app that has a slider to enable Developer Mode and set a password if you want to on this mode.

Step 2: Install WebOS Quick Install
Grab WebOS Quick Install from here and run the .JAR file

I didn’t need it but you can also grab Java 1.6 from that same link. I did this whole process on a stock Snow Leopard Mac Mini running 10.6.8.

Make sure your TouchPad is connected and ensure you click cancel on the USB drive prompt:

Allow Quick Install to install the Novacom drivers if it prompts you.

UPDATE: Someone in the comments suggested that if you’re having problems installing the drivers, use the HP SDK method instead.

Once you get the above screen, click on the globe icon on the righthand side, just about the phone image. This will give you the repository listing for all the apps. Type ‘preware’ in the search box (make sure you’re in the Applications tab), select it in the results list and click install.

I didn’t get any feedback that it was done…but rest assured, you should have Preware in your downloads tab on the TouchPad:

Launching Preware gives you this screen:

At the moment, there isn’t a lot of TouchPad specific apps/patches but more is being added all the time.

I installed these patches to start and can say for sure that they have dramatically sped up things on the TouchPad:

I also installed “Add Launcher Tabs” after this screenshot was posted in order to give me the “Games” and “Homebrew” tabs.

Good luck and have fun hacking your TouchPad!

Update (August 18, 2011): Looks like HP has thrown in the towel on WebOS based devices with the OS future uncertain at this point.

Just over 2.5 hours to print and surprisingly sturdy!

Trimensional is an iPhone app that lets you take 3D photos. I thought it was just a fun camera app to make animated gifs like these:

That is until they added the ability (via a modest in-app purchase) to export the scans as files that can be read by a 3D printer (.STL), like my MakerBot:

So here’s the scan of my face from above, printed in ‘nuclear green’:

Pretty cool and just a little creepy!

During assembly, I really got to understand how the whole system works and through the course of trial and error over the weekend, was constantly fine tuning the machine. Part of the issues were related to using the software and others were related to my assembly of the machine. The biggest pain is dealing with the tension of the X & Y belts and the electronics bay in the bottom of the machine being incredibly tight to fit all the wires – some of which weren’t quite long enough to be routed the way the assembly instructions stated.

Eventually I was able to solve most of the issues I was having and finally printed a few things to make the printing process better, before I start printing the really fun stuff.

First up was a clip for the safety cutoff switch. The Thing-O-Matic build called for me to drill some holes in the wood cutouts and I didn’t want to do that and thankfully someone posted a simple design to just clip the circuit board onto the platform.

It printed reasonably well…except that the back and forth motion of the printing process caused some wobble in the automated build platform so it got a little smooshed on one side…it’s just a simple clip so it doesn’t matter that much.

Next up is a filament spool holder. I had my spool just sitting on my desk and it worked okay to feed the material into the Thing-O-Matic but the spool holder makes much more sense:

Here’s a video of it printing (listen to the cool noises it makes while printing):

It actually printed the best so far of anything I’ve printed…until once again, the automated build platform came into play. This took nearly 2 hours to print and towards the top (and end of the print) the bottom of the object wobbled loose from the conveyer belt and the extruder head knocked it around and out of alignment. So I stopped the print. Fortunately, it was close enough to being done to still be usable when mounted on the top of the Thing-O-Matic:

Now the filament easily feeds itself right into the extruder with no fuss…I love it when simple solutions work so well.

Here’s some more photos from my Flickr set of the assembly and operation of the Thing-O-Matic, which I’ve named TK-421:

During the assembly, I did feel a little over my head sometimes and wished I’d opted for the fully assembled version (an additional $300 to the cost of the machine) but was able to figure it out and now have the knowledge of how the whole thing works….kind of like if you bought a motorcycle in kit form. Ongoing maintenance should be easier with the assembly knowledge I gained and it was pretty fun & challenging.

So what’s next? I still have some final adjustments to make to the Y axis as well as rerouting some wires. Once I take apart the electronics bay tonight, I should be truly fully operational! I’m also expecting some LED lighting to arrive shortly that should help in taking better photos and video of the printing process once installed inside the MakerBot.

Stay tuned for part 3 once I have some decent 3D objects printed.

Bonus video – MakerBots on CNN this past weekend:



Update: Just found this cool map of all the MakerBots around the world – I added TK-421 to the list.

View Makerbot Operator Map in a larger map

What is a 3D printer? Well, it let’s you print anything you want (up to a certain size) in ABS plastic, basically the same material that Legos are made out of. It’s an open source design that is based on the Arduino platform and few other custom electronics, motors, and stuff.

Here’s Bre Pettis, one of the Makerbot co-founders (who I met at SXSW a few years ago), explaining the process along with some video of the Thing-O-Matic in action:

The printer shown in the video (complete with green LED lighting) is exactly what I ordered (in kit form) plus a spool of some green ABS plastic filament (it comes with a starter supply of ‘natural’ plastic) and the Gen 4 Interface Kit so I can print without a computer attached (from SD cards). It’s a kit so I’ll have to assemble it all and I’ve read it can take anywhere from 12-20 hours to assemble it depending on the assembler. I’m hoping to be somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

So what will I print with it? That’s tough to answer at this point. My mind is racing with all kinds of ideas of things to use it for. Makerbot has a website, Thingiverse, where people post their designs to share with other 3D printer owners. It’s a database of all kinds of cool stuff people are dreaming up and printing. Another cool thing about having a 3D printer is that you can literally print things that can improve your 3D printer directly like this spool holder for the plastic filament.

I also wanted to share this video from Ignite Phoenix, called Why I love my 3D Printer which should give you some more insight into why I think this is the future and fun:

Some things that have caught my eye so far that I want to print include lego pieces (any size, color & quantity I want!), project boxes for my Arduinos, Space Invaders, mounts for my GoPro camera, a Flying Spaghetti Monster, a toy helicopter for a friend’s son, some new frames for my glasses, my own Millennium Falcon, even some designer jewelry for my girlfriend.

This gearset is particularly interesting as it really shows the potential of the printer in creating items that snap together, and use no glue or fasteners of any kind. Here’s a video of the finished product:

As you can see, there are tons of things to be printed and I haven’t even mentioned the ability to create & scan your own stuff! Using a Microsoft Kinect (meant for an Xbox 360), you can use it as a 3D scanner:

If you’ve got a Kinect and a Mac, check out the software options yourself – it’s plug and play. Microsoft has also released an official Kinect SDK for Windows you can also check out. I had my Kinect pointed at my desk from behind me and it felt a little like Tron and that I’d be scanned into “the Grid”. I’m still learning how to scan stuff but so far my scans have turned out pretty good…we’ll have to wait and see how well they print out though. I’ll also be printing a tripod adapter for my Kinect as well.

Of course, you can also create stuff in various 3D software packages (there are some great opensource ones) and then load them into the printing software which will then do all the calculations to print it in plastic. More on this aspect in future posts.

I haven’t received my printer yet, it’s currently in transit. I found out (ironically due to the Canadian Postal strike) that there is actually a Canadian distributor (based in Saskatchewan) for Makerbots which saves us Canadians $100s in shipping, duties and brokerage fees. It’s also a much cheaper way to get plastic supplies for the printer although I am still looking for a Vancouver based supplier. Greg @ Makerbot.ca has been very helpful so far and I’ve had a number of email exchanges and even a phone call about using the Thing-O-Matic. Great service so far and I don’t even have it yet!

Stay tuned as I plan on documenting the assembly of the printer along with my first few 3D prints…this really does feel like the future.

PS. If this kind of thing interests you in the least, you should check out the Vancouver Mini Maker Faire, happening this weekend (June 25-26) in Vancouver. I don’t know if there will be any Makerbots at the faire but there will be a few Reprap machines on display which are similar 3D printing systems. See you there!

UPDATE (June 21): My makerbot has arrived! Now the assembly process begins.
Here’s a few photos of the unboxing:

I’ll be posting more photos of the build process, which will likely take about a week, on Flickr.