Sep 16, 2014
On Monday August 4th Baltimore-based We The Builders team launched their crowdsourced 3d printed sculpture: Distributed Benjamin Franklin. The bust they wanted to make is a replica of is a contemporary piece of Benjamin Franklin. The sculpture were first scanned by Baltimore scanning company Direct Dimension and the model was then sliced up into 198 pieces using netfabb. The model were scaled up so the final piece will be the same height as George, about 33" tall.
We The Builders, a crowdsourced 3D printing project, was launched by Todd Blatt, a mechanical engineer and VP of Marketing at Tinkerine Studios, with 5 other makers - David Fine, Matthew Griffin, Amy Hurst, Ryan Kittleson, and Marty McGuire. Their first project, the George Crowdsourcington sculpture, was completed and debut at the NY 3D Print Show and then traveled all over the country to over a dozen events.
The second project works same as the first project: anyone who owns a 3d printer can log in and download one block of the sculpture, 3d print it, and mail it back to Baltimore where they're all getting glued together.
Today We The Builders team announced that the 198-piece 3D printed 'Distributed Ben Franklin' puzzle is done, just in time for World Maker Faire NYC on September 20th and 21st. Check out the time-lapse video of the build below.
During the build process, the team had help from Direct Dimensions for the scan, and Blatt's 3D printer company Tinkerine Studios sponsored some of the shipping costs. And Marty McGuire helped glue and did website admin.
"It took about a month, including the scanning, slicing, uploading, distributing, checking in pieces, tracking down missing ones for reprints, and the final assembly." writes Blatt in his blog.
Blatt will be giving a talk about the process and the platform on Thursday this week at Ignite Baltimore. If you like their projects and want to be part of it, you can check out WeTheBuilders site and sign up for alerts for their next project.
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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