Ten of the Coolest 3D Prints from Inside 3D Printing Santa Clara

Brain Fist Guy from SuperMansion

The SuperMansion series being aired on Crackle is a filthy stop motion animated series starring Bryan Cranston about a world where superheroes are real, and really ridiculous. The humor is similar in tone to something like Archer or South Park, but a lot filthier. This brain-fisted super villain is gloriously ridiculous, and while I don’t think the character’s name is Brain Fist, it bloody should be.

LED Robot Cheetah

The toy inventor behind this amazing LED-lined Robot Cheetah is Mark Trageser, who 3DPrint.com was lucky enough to meet last year when he showed up with his brand new 3D printed toy company InsaniTOY. His Robot Cheetah was one of the star attractions last year, but a good toy inventor will never let himself be outdone, even by himself. So this year he turned Robot Cheetah into an awesome LED show-stopper that would shift between a full spectrum of colors.

Micro-Scale Robot Cheetah

Because 3D models are completely scaleable, something that InsaniTOY’s Trageser takes full advantage of regularly, he can 3D print his toys in virtually any size imaginable. His Robot Cheetah is available in a full range of sizes, the largest being almost two feet long, and the smallest a few centimeters. But just for fun, he had this amazing micro-scale version of Robot Cheetah 3D printed, and it is so small that it is barely recognizable with the naked eye. But once you look through these two magnifying lenses, it is immediately clear what this is, and it’s amazing how detailed it is even at that scale.

NEMO the Underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle

Incredibly, almost all of NEMO was 3D printed by Stratasys Direct Manufacturing using multiple 3D printing technologies. The orange shell was made using FDM technology that was sanded and smoother, the clear cone was printed using stereolithography and then cast in a special urethane material, the fins were 3D printed with selective laser sintering and the internals were made with ULTEM 9085 on an FDM printer. NEMO was designed by Hydro Labs at the University of Arizona.

3D Printed Car Engine

To demonstrate their additive manufacturing capabilities, 3D printing service providers Forecast 3D created this amazing 3D printed engine block. Every part of the engine is completely 3D printed in various materials, and it was an exact replica of a real engine.

3D Printed Violin

We’ve covered this incredible 3D printed electric violin previously, but no picture will adequately do it justice. This is simply an amazing 3D printed instrument that looks more like the skeleton of some dead, alien creature or maybe a Klingon weapon of some sort. But whatever it looks like, the violin created by Monad Studio certainly makes beautiful music. There is also a 3D printed electric upright bass and a 3D printed electric cello, and in person they sound as amazing as they look. Interestingly, they are designed to be mostly hollow, with a honeycomb pattern that will produce an intentionally haunting sound.

3D Printed Spartan Marine from Halo

3D printing hardware and software retailer GoEngineer was showing off this amazing two foot tall Spartan figure that was 3D printed as a single part on a Stratasys Objet500 Connex. Aside from a bit of post processing, this is exactly how he came out of the Connex, completely assembled and printed in multiple colors.

Caribou Conflict Sculpture

Sculptor and artist David Van Ness showed off several of his amazing 3D printed sculptures that combine 3D scans of clay sculpts and digital sculpts. But the coolest was this amazing statue of two caribou smashing their massive antlers together, where they become completely intertwined and impossible to tell where one starts and the other begins. The final piece was 3D printed using an SLA process.  

Painted Predator Statue

The iconic science fiction horror monster was brought to life using the state of the art EnvisionTEC large frame 3D printers and only needed to be printed in a few pieces that were easily assembled. There was very little post processing required, and then it was passed off to a painter who turned this Predator statue into a real thing of horrific beauty.

Steampunk Hat & Goggles

This is another of Mark Trageser from InsaniTOY’s booth and it’s just a ton of fun. If you don’t know what steampunk is, it is a genre of science fiction that blends Victorian style and culture with fantasy-inspired steam-driven technology. While there are a few movies and novels set within the genre, Steampunk is primarily a form of cosplay, which we all know is 3D printing’s new best friend.

Trust me, this took a lot of effort to narrow down to just ten models, there were so many 3D printed objects at this year’s Inside 3D printing Santa Clara that I was just blown away. The parts on display ran the gamut from complex structures, home goods and complex engine parts. It is simply amazing how many new materials are being developed, and how they are being applied to new 3D printing technologies. If you want to know more about my visit to this year’s conference make sure that you take a look at Part One of my wrap up here, and Part Two here.