Incredible 3D Printable, 500 Piece Sentinel From ‘The Matrix’ is Now Available to Print at Home

The first thing that I did when I got my 3D printer a couple years ago was search around the internet for design files I could print out. I had no idea how to design anything, and just wanted to find a design which I could use to increase my experience level. At that time, everything available on the various 3D printing repositories was pretty simple, and not very interesting by any means. With this said, however, over the past two years we have seen an evolution in what is available for people like me to 3D print at home.

When it comes to finding unique, interesting objects, which are not of the same cookie-cutter type designs that we see plenty of around the net, MyMiniFactory has it covered. For one designer who designs 3D printable products for the company, coming up with a simple, bland design was not an option.

Reg Taylor

Reginald Taylor, a 46-year-old mechanical designer living in France, came up with a 3D printed design unlike anything I have seen before, based on the film series The Matrix.

“After watching the 3 films twice, it became evident that Matrix related 3D printable items are far and few between, so it was decided to go for the Sentinel,” Taylor tells 3DPrint.com.

For those who are not as avid of fans as myself or Taylor of the Matrix movies, the Sentinel is an autonomous killing machine which features advanced artificial intelligence. Its job in the film is to patrol the sewers, picking up dead bodies and incapacitating live humans. They look like giant robotic squid and, like squid, they travel together in swarms of thousands.

“I had a good idea that this project would require few but many pieces, meaning not much design time but a lot of print time,” explained Taylor. “For example, the tentacles each require 30 pieces.”

Taylor’s design actually includes 500 different 3D printed pieces, all of which when combined together, form an incredibly detailed, 3D printed version of the Matrix Sentinel.

In all, the design includes 300 pieces for the 10 tentacles (150 male and 150 female parts). These were printed at 0.25mm with no support and take approximately 26-31 minutes each to print out. The claws feature a total of 169 pieces, while the microphone portion of the design includes 19 pieces. The main body of the Sentinel was broken down in order to fit on Taylor’s print bed.

“I designed the body but it was too big for printing in one piece so I divided in into 2 pieces and made an assembly part for alignment,” Taylor told us. “Final assembly was quite simple as most parts just clip together, the claws hinge on printed pins that are a couple of mm too long, so once assembled I just melted the ends with a soldering iron a bit like a rivet. The two halves of the main body are glued together. I used super glue at the time but have just finished modifying a 3D printing pen (a bit like 3Doodler) so I can now weld parts together.”

As you can see in the photos, Taylor’s 3D printed Sentinel came out quite well, and the best part is that you too can download the design for this Matrix creature for free and 3D print it at home on your own 3D printer. While Taylor 3D printed his design using colored filament which he intended to be the final color for his Sentinel, he suggest that others could use an airbrush to create more of an “aged” look.

Taylor purchased a 3D printer just about 18 months ago, and has since been creating all sorts of designs which can be found on MyMiniFactory.com. What do you think about this incredible Matrix Sentinel that he designed and 3D printed? Will you attempt to 3D print it yourself? Discuss in the 3D Printed Matrix Sentinel forum thread on 3DPB.com.  Check out some more photos below, provided to us by Taylor.