Baaaaaby spacecraft

[nanila]

Thrilling news of the day: The mechanical workshop have printed me a set of scale models of the Cluster spacecraft. They're for my interactive in the Aurora Explorer exhibit at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition. They were done on the rapid prototyper, a 3D printer that builds up pieces from thin layers of plastic. My baby spacecraft were assembled from five printed sections, as shown below.

Baby Cluster, prior to assembly with superglue.



Assembled baby Cluster from the side.


Assembled baby Cluster from the top.


Painting these to look approximately like the real thing (shown below) will keep me off the streets this weekend.

Comments

[weaverbird]

Oooh, that's so cool!

[nanila]

Yes! I watched the rapid prototyper (3D printer) do its thing for about 20 minutes. The technicians laughed at me, but then I said, "Tell me you didn't do this the first time you saw it working," and they went all quiet.

[ironed_orchid]

Cute tiny spacecraft!

[nanila]

I know. I want to do a good job painting it. :)

[ironed_orchid]

I have faith in you.

[caulkhead]

That is very, very cool.

[nanila]

There are going to be five of them. Three for the interactive and two for spares. I'm hoping I get to keep one of the spares once the exhibition's over.

[ajnabieh]

That is absurdly cute. Also, I am still superimpressed with the idea of "printers" that print...like...things. Everyday I remember we live in the future.

[nanila]

I watched the printer running for a while, because it has a clear perspex cover so you can see the thing being built up in layers. I say that you can see it, but each successive layer is so thin as to be imperceptible, so even if you watch it for a long period of time (and I did), it's hard to tell.