Sculptor Alice Bakker came to the CabFabLab to explore her craft through the digital domain.  Usually working with hammered and forged sculptures in steel and copper, Alice decided to give Blender, the open source 3D modeling software,  a whirl. Her skilled craft lent itself well to designing in a 3D environment, and she quickly came up with some beautiful results.

The files were exported from Blender and then printed on our Dimension SST 3D Printer. The model is about 8cm high. Make sure to check out Alice’s website to see more of her work.

Graphic designer Fabio Bartali had the idea to make a chocolate pilcrow (¶ = end of paragraph sign). With a few sketches, he came to the CabFabLab to figure out the best way to bring his project to life.

Our intern Sjors helped Fabio design a 3D model in SolidWorks. We then assisted Fabio in working with the CNC router to machine the positive mold for the silicone resin. This mold was used to create a negative silicone mold to produce the chocolate character.

Fabio sent the chocolate pilcrow to his clients as a holiday gift. This project was partly inspired by Hans Wisbrun’s ChocoPi project. And don’t forget to check out Fabio’s project log on his blog (in Dutch).

Fabio’s original sketch of the mold.

The rendered 3D model of the pilcrow mold in SolidWorks.

The finishing pass on the CNC router.

Pouring silicone into the master mold.

Liquid white chocolate solidifying inside the silicone molds.

The end product:  plenty of chocolate pilcrows in 3 different types of chocolate!

Check out our photostream for more photos of the Chocolate Pilcrow and the process. We would love to hear about your ideas and projects regarding food fabrication. Let us know if you need any help with your next project!

Dutch students Emile Pop and Justin de Boer, from The Hague University (Haagse Hogeschool), are in the final stages of building their dream: The Savage Rivale Roadyacht GTS, a 4 door “topless on demand” supercar.

The rear light fixtures were printed at the CabFabLab using the Dimension SST1200ES 3D printer. The Savage Rivale Roadyacht GTS will be manufactured in a limited run of 20 cars. The rear light fixtures for the production run will be 3D printed due to the high cost of injection molded parts for such a small run. The transparent vacuum formed light cover and bent plastic interior were made at The Hague University (HHS).

After having built a “proof of concept” model of the rear light unit, Emile and Justin came back to the FabLab to print an improved version, for both the left and right side of the car. Adding up to a total of 6 3D jobs that took 75 hours. Luckily the Dutch supplier of the ABS plastic, SomaTech, was willing to help them out a bit by offering the required material at cost.

A part of the rear light unit — fresh out of the printer.

The light unit assembled along with the light cover.

The Savage Rivale Roadyacht GTS

Check out our photostream for more photos of The Savage Rivale Roadyacht GTS and the development process.

We put together a photo set containing a selection of CabFabLab’s most interesting projects and events of 2009.

We hope that this selection will shed some light on the wide variety of projects that can be realized with the help of a FabLab. Take some time to get inspired and come visit us for your next project!

The nice folks of design studio “Trapped in Suburbia” were asked to redesign the torture basement exhibition of museum goudA on a budget. The adhesive vinyl masks for the UV reactive paint and flashlight key chains were all cut at the CabFabLab. The results are stupendous! This is a great example of how the FabLab can be used for financially constrained projects. Time, effort, a little love and access to a FabLab can easily match the results of a big budget production.

Description from Trapped in Suburbia’s Behance page:

“For museum goudA, we were asked to redesign the torture exhibition in their cellar. And so we started to think how to make it more exciting and get kids to read the little signs next to the torture equipment. We decided to make it an experience and put all the information on the floor with UV-paint. One can only see the illustrations and explanations when shining the UV-flashlight over certain areas, otherwise it is simply white. This interactivity forces you to go exploring and discover new things. All the info on the floor is hand drawn, even the text. Illustration was done by Jos Verwer, the typography by Trapped in Suburbia. Special thanks to the CabFabLab, for their support.”

For more information have a look at Trapped in Suburbia’s portfolio page.

Welcome to the updated CabFabLab website!

With the growing international FabLab community, we have updated our website language to English. This change reflects our desire to participate in the global discourse of FabLabs. An essential part of the FabLab mission is to build an international resource of knowledge, and we hope to participate by sharing our experiences, activities, stories and suggestions throughout this blog. We hope you too will join us by posting comments, questions, links and off course coming to the CabFabLab and working on a project of your own!

The CabFabLab has been captivated with tons of exciting projects since our opening in May. If you have a look at the CabFabLab photo stream, you can see a selection of these projects. With this web update, we hope to start posting regularly about the projects and activities in the CabFabLab and Dutch FabLab community. We also have some exciting workshops planned for 2010, so keep your eyes peeled for what’s to come.

And lastly, I’m Mark — a new intern at the CabFabLab. I am from New York City and have decided to join the CabFabLab team to learn about the world of FabLabs, while also helping out in the lab with all the exciting and creative projects that our users dream up.

See you at the FabLab!