What would YOU make?

August 22, 2013 7:16 PM

A small computation of geeks are gathering in a month or so. We have access to a Replicator2 and want to make three cool door prizes. They can be the same or different.

These would get my vote, but I know there must be more cool ideas out there! Please offer up a suggestion! I want MOAR!

A Gear Wrap!
A small, lightweight cable wraps to keep earbuds, charging, and USB cables organized.

Infinite Sisu - iPad Stand
I am sure this will work for many things.

Puzzle Ball
They are normally made of jade and are a ball in a ball in a ball. Fractal!

ThingVerse
LOTS of small-medium project ideas here

A Hilbert Curve!
A continuous fractal space-filling curve first described by the German mathematician David Hilbert in 1891

ModiBot Mo- Poseable Venture Figure. That is all.

Cell Phone foldable charging stand.
(Always wanted one of these handy stands they show me on the internets!)

What would you make for this (mostly) male gathering of the minds?

posted by TangerineGurl to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

I would only suggest to be sure to print these items in advance, as 3d printing is *not* a fast process. For example, this castle might take, roughly 6 hours: Big Castle. I know because I printed one similar on a somewhat slow reprap mendel (8 hours or so to print.) Disclaimer, the castle model is produced by a program which I wrote.

For our hackerspace we used to quite frequently print bottle openers for visitors -- just a design off thingiverse modified slightly to have an embossed logo of the hackerspace.
posted by smcameron at 7:25 PM on August 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

A homogeneous convex mono-monostatic electrified six-car gömböc! Which I am happy to learn is pronounced "gum-butts".

(More about gömböc)
posted by moonmilk at 8:07 PM on August 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

Oh... I thought of another cool thing that's not too big and doesn't take too long and is super cool: Penrose Triangle.
posted by smcameron at 8:56 PM on August 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

Half a Menger Sponge
posted by Confess, Fletch at 10:20 PM on August 22, 2013 [1 favorite]

Maybe bottle tags with people's (nick)name on them, so they can mark a bottle of their favourite drink as theirs? Since these are geeks, surely there will be Club-Mate?

Here's the tag we use at our hackerspace. These are relatively quick to make so you could make one for everyone.
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:25 PM on August 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: smcameron: Very impressive castle and I bow to your kung fu. It has to travel well so looking for something smaller scale kinda like that cool Penrose Triangle!

moonmilk: This is exactly the type of "thing" I was hoping to learn about. My gum-butts search already lead me to armillary spheres ....

Confess, Fletch and Too-Ticky: Another nice addition in the form of a fractal! A Menger Sponge! And I like the design of the bottle tag with usernames.

Thank you! Keep them coming!
posted by TangerineGurl at 5:48 AM on August 23, 2013

What would I make with a 3d printer? SAAB parts, probably. (Stumbled on a little while ago b/c I miss my factory key).

But in the neat physics thing vein, the various mobius strip designs seem like they could be printed on small scale as keychains, earrings, pins, paperweights, and etc.
posted by snuffleupagus at 6:53 AM on August 23, 2013