My project during lockdown these many months has been to build myself my own guitar. It has taken much longer than I thought, and I am yet to finish (some frets are still buzzing so the neck needs more tweaking.) The fun part has been adding some custom flourishes. With the help of FormIt, Dynamo, and my trusty Makerbot I was able to create a pretty funky pick guard. Along with the orange paint job, it is really taking on a Halloween-like feel. Just in time!
3D Printing
Merry Maker Christmas!
As a gift, my 11 yr old designed and 3d printed me a hanging charger for my watch 😎 @tinkercad #3Dprinting #MakerGirls pic.twitter.com/ESkWEAqzKQ
— Tom Vollaro (@TomVollaro) December 26, 2018
“Cracked Back” Generative iPhone Case
I wanted to create a unique, customizable and flexible case for my brand new iPhone 8. I used Dynamo, the open-source visual programming system from Autodesk and its experimental system for creating generative designs: Project Fractal. The result is this cool Voronoi pattern that simulates the nightmare of every iPhone user: a cracked screen. If you want to play around with the design and download your own STL, see the “customizer” here. I used SainSmart TPU – which has a nice balance of flexibility and strength. The next step is to add some more sizes and experiment with how to smooth out the rough edges on the final print.
Otto connected to mBlock
We finally got our little Otto bot connected to mBlock so that Anna can program him using the Scratch interface. This could not have been done without the StemBot extension for mBlock!
Chartres-inspired Labyrinth Earrings
For Anna’s birthday I designed and 3D printed earrings inspired by the labyrinth at the Chartres Cathedral.




