DIY D&D: 3-D Monster Minatures

Dungeons andDragons,Pathfinder and lots of other tabletop role-playing games have an optional, but helpful, visual component to them: the battle map with miniatures. In fact, my pal Drew of Drew's Robots has a 3D printer he's designed and built himself, and he's used it to pretty impressive effect in the Pathfinder games he runs, as I showed on my instangram once:

When your GM places a giant monster he personally 3D printed on the board... You know you're in for a fight. #d&d #tabletopgaming

A photo posted by Shawn Struck (@shawnstruck) on Oct 29, 2015 at 6:09pm PDT

3-D sculptor, designer, and fellow dice-chucker Miguel Zavala has created a series of 3D-printed monster miniatures for use in Dungeons & Dragons and similar games and uploaded the designs at Thingiverse for free so that interested folks can use them to print out their own. There are a lot of really awesome designs, but I'd have to say my favorite is probably the Dread Gazebo, pictured below!

Description: A mini model of a gazebo given a monsterous appearance by adding tentacles sprouting from each corner, sharp
and jagged teeth and lolling tongue in the entryway and red, bloodshot beady eyes atop its roof.

Roll For Accessibility: Make Your Own Braille d20

Description: A blue 20 sided die resting atop a gray and white grid background.
The numbers 2, 12, 15, and 10 are on the visible facets of the the 20 in Braille.

Thingaverse user idellwig has a visually impaired friend who had been searching for a decent Braille 20-sided die for ages with no success. She designed a Braille d20 and now thanks to Thingaverse, anyone with access to a 3D printer can download and make their own accessible d20!

Actress and geek taste-maker Felcia Day featured a version of this die on her facebook page last year, and aside from the obvious uses for any tabletop game involving a 20-sided die, others mentioned it could be a good tool for teaching kids about everything from geometry, shapes and numeric Braille.

Now You're Printing With Power: 3D Printer Retro Portable

Friend of the blog Drew of Drew's Robots has done some pretty awesome things with his custom designed and built 3-D printer-- a TARDIS that transforms into Optimus Prime, remote controlled walker robots, and his latest upload to Thingaverse: a little retro portable handheld console he calls the PiSP, for PiStation Portable.

My main design goal was to have good ergonomics. This design fits nicely with my large hands, with an analog joystick that I find more comfortable than a D-pad, and large illuminated buttons with nice mechanical action instead of small membrane buttons. 

The mechanical assembly is fairly simple, only two printed pieces, with nearly all the electrical parts attached to the front half. It has an internal battery charger, and can be played while charging - although you will discharge faster than you charge, so you still need to shut down to recharge fully. The second USB port on the PI is accessible, so you can plug in a USB drive to transfer roms, or an external keyboard for configuration or emulating systems needing a keyboard.

If you want to make this for yourself, you can download the files and print them out for free by visiting his Thingaverse page.

Must-See Video of Adorable Robot & Curious Cat

Engineer, product designer and robot designer Drew Lindsey decided to test out a new redesign of his walker robot at a friend's house, and along with the curious humans, another investigator couldn't help but take a closer look: one curious little cat! You can view the adorable and impressive video below!