A Kickstarter Requirement

While there are multiple options and websites that function as crowd-sourcing platforms (i.e. asking customers to pre-pay or fund a new-to-market item before it goes into production to cover the upfront investment costs), Kickstarter is undoubtedly one of the most popular and utilized.

As part of their rules and regulations, Kickstarter requires a visual of the prototype along with a description and use guide. They also note that a graphical or computer-generated image of a product is specifically prohibited. Kickstarter requires that companies present a looks-like, functional working model as a prototype to both explain the product and to entice potential backers.

This is precisely why 3D printing has been such an effective and essential tool for companies looking to crowd source projects through Kickstarter. Other techniques for creating a working model may require substantial financial investment upfront, and/or increased working hours. Tooling, mold making, sculpting by hand as well as less effective techniques like “kit bashing” (mixing and matching parts from existing products to create something new) all lack the advantages 3D printing provides – custom-designed, precise and affordable models that can function as prototypes and final products.

So what type of products benefit from 3D prototyping for Kickstarter? The simple answer is – almost anything. 3D printing is not limited to any one category or industry, and can offer different benefits for different types of Kickstarter product pitches. Here are three examples from three different businesses that utilized 3D printing in their Kickstarter campaigns.

Customize Your Vision  

Boulton Eyeware ran a successful Kickstarter campaign where they received a total of £35,000  ($26,000) to fund their pre-production costs. Their unique concept was based on one simple premise: every human face is different. Just as customers have fitted suits created for their bodies, Boulton felt there was a market for custom sunglasses for each individual’s face.

3D printing excels in customization, which is why Boulton Eyeware turned to this process, not only for their prototype, but for actual production as well. In order to create a working prototype to use on Kickstarter, Boulton went through 70 different concepts refining and changing their materials and finishing until a satisfactory model was achieved. It was the ease of use, cost effective process and robust selection of material that made 3D printing the right choice for their custom product.

Customized For Coffee Lovers

The ability to experiment with functionality is another major advantage to using 3D printing for Kickstarter prototypes. Fellow started as a class project that blossomed into a startup business based in San Francisco. Their simplistic goal: to create the world’s best cup of coffee. 

Dubbing themselves “coffee loving nerds” the team at Fellow led by founder Jake Miller found inspiration from across the globe and throughout history. They reviewed coffee pot designs from as far away as Scandinavia, as well as mid-century industrial designs.

Where 3D printing came into play was in the functionality aspect.  In order to find that perfect design that would brew and pour the coffee of their dreams, Fellow engineers made hundreds of 3D prototypes, constantly changing, modifying and updating their design to achieve the ideal result they wanted.

Using 3D printing not only provided a cost-saving measure with the ability to constantly change designs at a low cost, but it allowed them to see how their product would take up space in kitchens and countertops. By working in 3D, their designs could be reviewed both functionally and aesthetically in the real world. It became much easier to review a physical model because it was to scale, letting designers hold, manipulate and brew coffee using their 3D printed models.

Getting into the Action

Turning to the toy category, Bobby Vale, a former designer at Hasbro, saw a hole in the consumer market for 6” highly articulated action figures that represented military soldiers and the different divisions of our service men and women.

Aiming to please the discriminating “adult collector” who looks for features such as sculpting detail, paint deco and above all a large amount of articulation points (for posing and display), Bobby was set up for success. He modeled his Valaverse military figures off of the successful Marvel super hero products he worked on in his previous position. 3D printing became the key tool to show off these features to potential funders on Kickstarter.

Both the durability and flexibility of 3D printing were important factors in creating the Valaverse 3D prototypes for Kickstarter. In order to show off the high level of articulation, each part needed to assemble and work just like a mass-produced action figure. The materials offered by 3D printing not only permitted his prototypes to articulate, but they could assemble and function exactly as finished products would. This permitted the most accurate and true-to-final prototype to illustrate his Kickstarter concept to potential backers.

All the Features You Need

3D printing is becoming more and more the go-to technology for prototyping visual models for crowd-funded campaigns.

At Shapeways, we offer 3D printing benefits that go above and beyond what consumers may find elsewhere. In addition to a vast selection of materials (over 75!) and the best quality checks by 3D printing engineers, printing with Shapeways requires no equipment to purchase or maintain. We handle all of the fast turnarounds and deliver exactly what you need to succeed for your campaign.

Whether you are looking for customization, to test out functionality, or demonstrate features that work like finished goods, 3D printing can be your best solution. The Shapeways team is here to provide all of your 3D prototyping needs in one place.

The post Kickstart Your Innovations With 3D Prototypes appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Their latest endeavor Dice Miner is a dice-based game that was pre-sold through a Kickstarter campaign. Because of the high expectations Kickstarter funders have, an early visual of the product was necessary to show off the new game to potential backers.

In order to create these visual components, Atlas Games sought out our 3D printing services to prototype the game pieces they needed, and were able to utilize 3D printing for fast and cost-effective solutions from early prototyping to final-stage designs.

Jeff Tidball, Chief Operating Officer of Atlas Games, has a deep passion for games. For a look behind the scenes at Atlas Games’ newest creation, we interviewed Jeff to find out how the advantages of 3D prototyping was critical for Dice Miner’s Kickstarter success.

Could you give us a quick summary about Atlas Games as well as your latest game, Dice Miner?

Atlas Games is a tabletop game publisher with a 30-year history and deep catalog of board, card, and roleplaying games. We’re best known for card games like Gloom and Once Upon a Time. Dice Miner is a dice drafting game with 60 custom dice and a unique mountain component that organizes the dice across each game’s three rounds, showing which dice are available to choose at any given time as the game unfolds.

What was the purpose of using Shapeways to make prototypes for Dice Miner?

Dice Miner’s Deluxe Edition will have a plastic PVC mountain, so we used Shapeways to prepare early prototypes of that component. We used Shapeways for two purposes. First, to playtest using components as close as possible to the final version, to make sure they performed as we expected at the table. Second, to evaluate their producibility while holding physical objects, as opposed to needing to evaluate them only on screen, or in our imaginations. 

How did you come to the decision to use 3D printing instead of other manufacturing methods?

Other manufacturing methods, to produce only one or two copies of a component like Dice Miner’s Deluxe Edition mountain, simply do not exist. (Maybe we could have hired someone to hand-sculpt one? I don’t even know.)

Did you already have technical knowledge in 3D printing? If not, was there a learning curve to getting into this technology?

Prior to Dice Miner, I had done very little 3D printing for a previous game’s miniatures prototype, also with Shapeways. However, we had the help of a consultant we had hired to create our plastic components, so we were able to use his model directly to produce the prototypes we used. So there was not much of a learning curve, but that’s because we had hired folks to help us already.

What material(s) do you print in and why?

We went with [Versatile Plastic, which are] cheap and fast for our game components. We were looking solely at form and function, rather than having any particular materials requirements.

How much time and/or cost were you able to save by prototyping with Shapeways versus using another method?

I don’t really have anything like that [to compare], since the other options don’t really exist. I suppose you could think about the complete disaster that would arise if a $3,500 mold was created wrong — having a physical prototype can help avoid that instance. Although it’s a small change, spending one or two hundred dollars to hedge against that downside seems pretty reasonable. Creating early prototypes also helped us get an advanced copy to an outside previewer, which helped illustrate to potential campaign backers how the game is played. Waiting for copies of the game from the production line would have simply been impossible. Without a preview of the game, I suspect fewer backers would have been comfortable joining the Kickstarter. Again, no hard-and-fast metrics, but I suspect we’d have left money on the table without being able to preview the game in that way.

Not only was Atlas Games able to succeed on Kickstarter, but they surpassed their goal by almost $80,000. Our 3D prototyping solutions were instrumental in this process by providing a simple and cost-effective means to creating a visual preview of the game.

And more importantly, game fans would now be able to “draft the dice” in Dice Miner with the empowerment that they helped make the game happen by supporting it on Kickstarter!

Are you creating a new game or product for an upcoming Kickstarter campaign? Find out how Shapeways can help with your rapid prototyping needs today.

The post How 3D Printing Helped Atlas Games Achieve Kickstarter Success appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Print Plus DIY Headphones first emerged as a Kickstarter campaign way back in September 2015.

The pitch was simple: 3D printable headphones designed to be customized, repaired, and upgraded. 572 backers pledged €28,834 — nearly three times the original €10,000 goal.

The original delivery dates for the campaign were for March 2016, but this proved overly ambitious. In May 2017, the Print Plus headphone kits were finally released to the wild.

Instead of making the components on a conventional desktop 3D printer, we had the STL files fabricated on a HP Multi Jet Fusion 3D printer through an early access pilot program with Shapeways. The cost came to around €100, which might sound like a lot of amount of money to spend on DIY headphones, but we chose to do this because the new material is worth exploring. Plus, if the result turned out to be of high enough quality, the final cost would amount to a good value for a pair of audiophile headphones.

Now that the Kickstarter campaign obligations have been settled, Print Plus is selling their kits direct to the public for €35.

Components

There are seven different headphone designs to choose from. These range from traditional styles to futuristic minimalism and low-poly cans.

While we went with a higher-end material printed through Shapeways, if you’d like to print the components at home, Print Plus are recommending a new PLA filament from Polymaker called PolyMatte to print the headphones. (You can also buy the 3D printed parts in PolyMatte direct from Print Plus for an additional €35.)

But you’re free to fabricate the headphones using any material, service, or technology you prefer.

Other Components

The DIY Headphone Kit comes in a small black box. Tucked away inside are two cushions, a headband, cables with standard 3.5 mm audio jacks) in one of 21 colors, and a smaller box holding a pair of speakers and a single button remote/microphone.

In 23 steps, you go from separate components to a working pair of headphones.

Quality

We tested the DIY headphones by playing a series of FLAC (free lossless audio codec) files on both an Android smartphone and a PC. We also tested it with Spotify on an iPhone.

The FLAC files were the albums The Warning (Hot Chip), Abbey Road (The Beatles), and Currents (Tame Impala). We picked them because we’ve listened to them on a range of headphones and speakers again and again over many years.

The bass is deep and profound, and we can hear subtle details we’d never noticed before in songs we’d heard a million times already.

We also tested the line-in microphone on a phone call or two. It just works. The person at the other end of the line could hear us clearly. Ditto for hearing the conversation over the headphones.

Nothing to do with audio quality, but still relevant; the line-in remote functions as it should on both Android and iOS. One button to pause the music, two buttons to skip to the next track.

Downsides

Our DIY headphones ended up being a little heavy. Prolonged use may lead to fatigue. This is perhaps because we used a different production technique on STL files optimized for FFF. If you’re making your own pair at home, you may want to experiment with infill to get the right weight.

Also, we were disappointed that the headband cushion has already started fraying at one edge.

Verdict

Perhaps you could buy better sounding headphones for less money, but that’s not the point. The point is that you assembled them entirely by yourself, in the style of your choosing. And it was all made possible through the magic of 3D printing.

The post Product Review: DIY Headphones in HP Multi Jet Fusion Nylon appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

As the Verge reports, Adidas will make 5,000 pairs of its Futurecraft 4D sneakers available this year, with plans to sell 100,000 pairs by the end of 2018. The midsole, printed using Carbon‘s revolutionary continuous liquid interface production (CLIP) process, is more robust and flexible than an injection-molded part.

Adidas gave its first version of the Futurecraft 4D to some winning athletes at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Nike used 3D printing to prototype track shoes for the Rio games, but they were manufactured through traditional methods. While Nike has been a little slow to release 3D printed footwear to the masses, they have a new partnership with the French 3D printing company Prodways. According to Footwear News, Prodways’ TPU outsoles, midsoles, and insoles will greatly decrease Nike’s production time, with the added benefit of creating more form-fitting, comfortable shoes.

New Balance introduced the Zante Generate, featuring a midsole designed by Nervous System and 3D printed by 3D Systems, last year. New Balance just signed on to produce more 3D printed sneakers using Form Cell, Formlabs’ recently announced small-scale manufacturing system that links up to five Form 2 3D printers with Form Wash + Form Cure machines.

According to Esquire, Reebok created 300 pairs of its Liquid Speed sneakers using its Liquid Factory system. The outsole is 3D printed and wraps around the sneaker as a flexible cage. This allows the sneaker to mold to the foot and give extra return energy to runners with every step. Last month, at the RAPID + TCT additive manufacturing expo, I saw Under Armour’s new “super hybrid” trainer, designed using generative design and 3D printing for everything from running to weightlifting. Sneaker News reports that the next version of the cross trainer, the ArchiTech Futurist, is due out this week.

Not all 3D printed footwear is for elite athletes and runners. Feetz takes a different approach, offering custom-fit shoes through their FeetzApp. Customers take photos of their feet and the app processes it into a 3D model. Recently, Feetz formed a partnership with retailer DSW, with Feetz@DSW pop-up shops in NYC and San Francisco, according to 3DPrint.com.

Wiivv prints custom insoles and recently had a successful Kickstarter for recyclable 3D printed sandals with interchangeable and custom toe-thong placement. As with Feetz, users take photos of their feet with an app.

Brunel University London student Faisal Tayan is creating customizable shoes for refugees, 3DPrint.com recently reported. Rather than using a 3D printer to create bespoke shoes, Tayan used a 3D printed mechanism that lets his Shoe4All expand from size 6 to 11. For each pair he sells, Tayan plans to donate one pair of shoes to a person in need.

So 3D printed footwear looks and sounds sexy, but is it really the wave of the future — or is it just hype? Shapeways’ Lauren Slowik recently shared her opinion. I’m more optimistic than Lauren, and tend to think that 3D printing has a wide range of applications and will appeal to consumers’ desires for better fit, comfort, and customization.

What do you think? Are you wearing 3D printed shoes yet? Will your next pair of kicks be 3D printed, or is it a novelty that will go the way of the way of the shoe phone?

The post One Step Beyond: Sneaker Brands, Others Race Ahead With New 3D Printed Shoes appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Silent Legions: Create Your Own Cthulhu-Style Mythos, Then Play It

Silent Legions is a sandbox-style pen-and-paper RPG oozing with Lovecraftian horror. It was summoned by 1,000+ Kickstarter backers, who performed an eldritch ritual to bring it to this plane.

Silent Legions is nothing but rulebooks and its creator encourages players to make their own dark gods and monsters. Fortunately, Lovecraftian horrors are in no short supply at the Shapeways marketplace, or you can conjure up your own horrors and create a 3D model to give people nightmares forever. Fun!

Scythe: I’ve Got a 40-Foot Tank, Don’t Make Me Use It!

If you’re into board games and were alive in 2016, there’s no doubt you’ve heard of Scythe. This massive tabletop blends strategy, resource management, and, coolest of all, giant mech combat in such a unique way that its Kickstarter campaign raised $1.77 million more than asked for. While the game comes with some nice mech miniatures, Shapeways has much more imposing mechs. And every mech in Scythe has different abilities, so you can have up to 20 different kinds of awesome and imposing titans scattered across the board.

Blood Rage: It’s the End of the World As We Know It…

Blood Rage is a board game that almost requires you to listen to heavy metal while playing it. Ragnarok has come, and five different Viking clans have decided to secure their place in Valhalla before the world is consumed in fire and calamity. They do so by ravaging the countryside and slaying their enemies. In the course of the chaos, you can recruit famous Norse monsters like sea serpents and fire giants. However, there’s a real lack of dragons here, even though Norse mythology has its fair share. Thankfully, so does Shapeways and these dragons look every bit as amazing as the Blood Rage minis.

Do you have a game you’d like to see expanded through 3D printing? Did we break these games by making them more awesome? Let us know in the comments!

The post Mechs and Monsters: Make Your Favorite Tabletop Games Even Better appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Shapeways shop owner Jeremy Burnich has launched a Kickstarter campaign to create a stunning bowl in the shape of Antarctica, with the proceeds going to offset carbon (via Carbonfund.org) and help fight climate change.

Jeremy used Shapeways’ Porcelain and Strong and Flexible (Nylon) Plastic to prototype and fine-tune his design. He’s now raising money to cast the bowl for mass production — and mass positive environmental impact.

Jeremy notes, “Shapeways has been an invaluable resource to help bring this campaign and the South Bowl to life. I used Shapeways in the prototyping process and its SLS Nylon printers will be what create the final mold master that every South Bowl will be patterned after.”

“One of the rewards will be made by Shapeways right in New York! From NYC to Pittsburgh to Portland, the South Bowl is an American endeavor that does good for the entire world. Each Shapeways-produced reward has a 50 kg carbon offset.”

The bowl is beautiful and we love the care that Jeremy takes in choosing his production partners. This isn’t just about making a nice product; it’s about being thoughtful about the whole manufacturing process and working to make a positive impact.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/116884736/the-south-bowl

The post This Little Bowl Makes a Big Impact appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Last week, Knezevic and sound engineer Edin Secibovic launched a Kickstarter for their innovative T3TRA loudspeakers. With frames in colorful Shapeways Strong & Flexible nylon and panels in laser-cut birch plywood, the speakers combine two of the most popular digital manufacturing techniques. The single-piece tetrahedral frame also offers a distinct audiophile advantage, dramatically reducing vibration (and the usual small-speaker tinniness). The result is a small-but-mighty portable speaker. I asked Igor about what led him down this new path in product design.

What inspired you to create the T3TRA speakers?

I thought, “Let’s try to use the simplest geometric forms,” which make great sense for hi-fi sound (no hard edges, no corners, so fewer resonances, etc.), and try to make all the pieces digitally, with a minimum of post-processing. The frame is 3D printed and the sides are natural plywood (birch), laser-cut to fit perfectly into the 3D printed frame. As a result, T3TRA speakers have great sound, especially in this size group.

The finished T3TRA, and in concept form

What advantages did the 3D printed element bring to the speakers?

The tetrahedral frame of the loudspeaker is 3D printed in SLS nylon, giving it great stability and excellent sound properties because of the shape (no parallel edges), rounded edges (better for sound diffusion) and perfect uniformity of nylon material. In short, it’s a “unibody” frame. This is quite hard to achieve with other manufacturing methods. Plus, it can have that really intense Shapeways dye color. The color really pops – like candy.

Available color options

What was the process of creating them like?

This sound system as a form/shape was designed by myself, but the real sound expertise was provided by my friend and co-creator Edin Secibovic, who is a sound engineer. As we tried out some ideas, we realized that by combining two digital manufacturing methods, we can achieve an affordable speaker design which can be produced on-demand and hand-assembled relatively quickly. As far as sound quality is concerned, it worked at first try! We were very pleasantly surprised. Even deep sounds were apparent, which can be a problem for small-form speakers. A few tweaks were needed to make the parts fit perfectly, but it was pretty painless.

The 3D printed frame and laser-cut side panels

Overall, what makes these speakers special?

It’s about having the minimum number of parts, which fit perfectly together since they are all fully digitally manufactured – making for excellent sound distribution. In sound, less is definitely more. It turns out SLS nylon is a very good material for sound applications since the material is perfectly uniform in all directions and sizes are always exact.

We also have another design in the works – this one fully 3D printed, and with a different form factor. Coming soon, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, check out the Kickstarter for the T3TRA speakers, and don’t miss the incredible pieces in Alienology’s Shapeways shop. Let us know in the comments: have you used 3D printed parts in gadgets you’d like us to feature? Leave a note below for a chance to be featured on the blog.

The post Alienology’s Latest: Audiophile-Approved 3D Printed Speakers appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

Ready to start making your 3D printing New Year’s resolutions come true? Shapeways is all about making your ideas a reality, and we’ve got the perfect opportunity to jumpstart your newest project.

Our friends at Kickstarter are inviting people to launch a new series of new mini-campaigns called Make 100. Throughout January, they’ll be featuring artists and creators running quick projects that offer backers an edition of exactly 100 items. This is the perfect way to reach out to your friends and fans and offer them a small run of special, 3D printed gifts. And, it’s a great way to share and develop a new idea — while providing friends and fans with a unique, limited-edition design.

And, after your Kickstarter ends, bringing your vision to life through Shapeways means:

• Iterations go directly to market

• Low barrier to entry — just design it and print

• No setup costs compared with traditional manufacturing

• Unlimited unique, custom items

• Over 50 high-quality, consumer-ready materials (and if you have a home printer, Shapeways can take your prototypes to final version quality)

• Direct shipping and fulfillment

• Prints ready to post-process (where applicable)

• Strong community support and inspiration

Whether you’re making miniatures or jewelry, art or practical tools, if you have an idea for a Make 100 campaign, sign up here.

Learn more about making with Shapeways here.

The post This January, Make 100 With Kickstarter appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

A few months ago, we featured an awesome design by Noah Li, the miniature Russian Walker tank.

Since he shared that design with us, he’s been hard at working expanding the tank’s options into a series of interchangeable, customizable kits of parts for these robotic war machines. To finish the project, he’s raising money via a Kickstarter, which you can support here.

 

Noah set out to create a series of customizable miniature tanks inspired by a science fiction, dieselpunk setting. Representing designs in an alternative World War II reality, each tank is based on a different country. The parts are totally interchangeable, allowing for endless creative combinations.

Below are some process photos documenting Noah’s post-processing and painting of his French- and Russian-themed tanks.

First, the raw Strong and Flexible Plastic is cleaned of any remaining powder:

Then it gets a base coat of paint:

Finally, metallic paint is applied to show wear, and brown tones are rubbed on to show dirt, giving the impression of a well-used machine:

The final parts are interchangeable and can be assembled and mixed together:

Examples of how the tanks can be assembled:

And reassembled:

The obligatory banana to show scale:

For more check out Noah Li’s shop and Kickstarter campaign here. Looking for more paint-it-yourself pieces to satisfy the miniatures lovers on your list this holiday season? Check out our Paint it Collection here.

The post New Dieselpunk Miniature Robots Kickstarter appeared first on Shapeways Blog.

As a result of all the user feedback from the app, the Gravity Sketch team embarked on developing a more advanced tool to even further lower the barriers to 3D literacy by creating a desktop and virtual reality version and have just launched a Kickstarter to fund the project.

The new experience offers users a “what you see is what you get” interface where users can interact with 3D creations in real time, in a truly three dimensional space. The team was inspired to extend this fully immersive creation experience, allowing you to tap (literally) into simple tools that enable you to create complicated shapes in seconds– all of which are sketched the exact size as you see it.

Ready to take 3D modeling into your own hands? Gravity Sketch is ready to make this possible with this VR experience. As a fun bonus, for a limited time, backers that support the Kickstarter campaign for about $19 (£15), you’ll be able to pick and receive a Shapeways 3D printed ornaments that was designed by a Gravity Sketch artist, right in time for the holidays! Check out the gorgeous options below, they’re printed out of strong and flexible plastic, with some nifty little interlocking parts!

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