Edge-lit Holiday Cards

December 10, 2008 by Eliot 8 Comments

edgelit

Got 30 minutes for a holiday project and don’t want to get wrangled into some sort of decoupage disaster? Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories can show you just how easy it is to do edge lighting effects. Pictured above are three holiday cards constructed using scored plastic. You can use many different types of clear plastic for this, not just acrylic. The lighting is just an LED on a coincell. Black tape is used to prevent light leaking from the edges. The red and green version above is two stacked layers. This looks like something fun to scale up for a larger project or just to kill some time.

RepRap Universal Constructor Achieves Self-replication

June 4, 2008 by Juan Aguilar 14 Comments

RepRap, the self-replicating universal constructor has had our attention since it first started spitting out globs of shapeless goo, but its speculative potential turned in a real benchmark recently when a RepRap machine made parts for an identical machine in a few hours (a child, in other words), then the second RepRap successfully made parts for a third or grandchild machine.

RepRap does not fully assemble copies of itself, but produces the 3D-printed plastic components necessary to assemble another copy. It has also successfully produced other plastic goods like sandals and coat hooks. [Dr. Adrian Bower] is the leader of the RepRap team, and he will be exhibiting its capabilities at this week’s Cheltenham Science Festival.

[via BoingBoing]