3D Printing Projects: Toys, Bots, Tools, and Vehicles to Print Yourself

Even if you've never touched a 3D printer, these projects will excite and empower you to learn new skills, extend your current abilities, and awaken your creative impulses. Each project uses a unique combination of electronics, hand assembly techniques, custom 3D-printed parts, and software, while teaching you how to think through and execute your own ideas.

Written by the founder of Printrbot, his staff, and veteran DIY authors, this book of projects exemplifies the broad range of highly personalized, limit-pushing project possibilities of 3D printing when combined with affordable electronic components and materials.

• Print and assemble a modular lamp that's suitable for beginners--and quickly gets you incorporating electronics into 3D-printed structures.
• Learn about RC vehicles by fabricating--and driving--your own sleek, shiny, and fast Inverted Trike.
• Model a 1950s-style Raygun Pen through a step-by-step primer on how to augment an existing object through rapid prototyping.
• Fabricate a fully functional, battery-powered screwdriver, while learning how to tear down and reconstruct your own tools.
• Get hands-on with animatronics by building your own set of life-like mechanical eyes.
• Make a Raspberry Pi robot that rides a monorail of string, can turn corners, runs its own web server, streams video, and is remote-controlled from your phone.
• Build and customize a bubble-blowing robot, flower watering contraption, and a DIY camera gimbal.

Brook Drumm is the founder and CEO of Printrbot, Inc. Brook is an American maker who set out to start a side business in his garage. After a wildly successful kickstarter in 2011, Brook was catapulted to the white-hot intersection of crowdfunding, 3d printing and the exploding maker- culture. Printrbot is an example of what blood, sweat and tears can produce if you set your mind and heart on what you are passionate about.

James is a writer who lives in Atlanta, GA with his wife and two young sons. He has degrees in Industrial Engineering and English and enjoys making things, writing about those things, and training young makers. He has written over 25 books on a variety of subjects from LEGO robotics to Open Source software to building your own CNC machine and 3D printer.

Rick has code in brain, soldering iron in hand, Art Blakey blaring in the background... transforms techno babble into reality and is strangely fond of the ellipsis.

John Edgar Park is a producer at Disney Research. He has worked in animation production at Disney for ten years and has worked in computer graphics since 1994 at various companies, including IBM, Novalogic game studio, and Sony Pictures Imageworks. John was the host and co-writer of the Emmy Award nominated series Make: Television. He regularly demos his projects at Maker Faires, and builds and writes about technology projects for Make magazine and other places online and in print.

John Baichtal has written or edited over a dozen books, including the award-winning Cult of Lego (2011 No Starch Press), LEGO hacker bible Make: LEGO and Arduino Projects (2012 Maker Media) with Adam Wolf and Matthew Beckler, Robot Builder (Que 2014) and Basic Robot Building with LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 (Que 2012), as well as Building Your Own Drones (forthcoming from Que). His most recent book is Maker Pro (Maker Media 2014), a collection of essays and interviews describing life as a professional maker. John lives in Minneapolis with his wife and three children.

Brian Roe is a Tinkerer at heart and a Mechanical Designer by trade. His diverse career has led him down many interesting paths. He worked as a creature creator for Hollywood films, was part of a successful combat robot team for the show Battlebots, and I assisted with the design of the 3D cameras used for the film Avatar. Brian is currently working on The 10,000 Year Clock project for The Long Now Foundation along with engineering for Printrbot.

Nick served in the Marine Corps for eight years, after which he decided to go back to school and pursue a career in Electronics Engineering. He spent two years at Parallax Inc. as the lead developer of the Elev-8 Multi-rotor platform, before coming over to work on electronics at Printrbot Inc. He is a maker at heart, and enjoys tinkering and hacking on all size and shapes of electronics. If it ain't broken, you haven't tinkered enough!

Steven Bolin is currently working at Printrbot as a Production Manager and assists in the R&D department. He has always enjoyed working with his hands whether it be in construction or just projects around the house, so building and designing 3D printers has been an absolute joy. As a former Youth Pastor and father of 2 kids, he loves making and playing with toys, so 3D printing lends naturally to this hobby. Steven hopes to continue developing new product that incorporates 3D printing into everyday use.

Caleb Cotter works at Printrbot as an R&D Specialist. He's a maker with a passion for 3D printing and rapid prototyping. He's fascinated with the world of opportunity in which you can make anything on your desk. When he's not in his garage hacking up stuff, he's still in his garage hacking up his car. On the rare occasion he's not making anything, he's out exploring or getting into trouble with friends.