The Humble Velocipede

Some years ago, I saw a jaw dropping TED talk where artist Theo Jansen showed off his Strandbeests, and I've wanted one ever since. I've also been permanently hooked on TED talks.

In any case, that was one of the main things that led me to get into 3D printing.  I was discouraged, however after printing the BrawBeast, only to discover that my PLA wasn't rigid enough for it to work at the tiny scale I had to scale it to in order to make it fit on my little Up printer.

Those days are over. The Strandbeest was on The Simpsons the other day, reminding me how much I wanted one.  I've got bigger printers now, and Thingiverse user Danowall published a very cool new upgraded Humble Velocipede.  Unlike previous Strandbeests, this one uses a metal (not printed) driveshaft, which is much stronger, allowing it to work like the real thing.  The catch is, you have to buy it from him.  But its only 20 bucks and the process by which its made is pretty cool and worth checking out the video of.

It took me about 2 days to print all the parts, using two printers simultaneously. I went with a camo color scheme. Green, brown, wood, and high visibility orange for the tiny little bits. Now I'm just waiting for the driveshaft kit to arrive in the mail so I can assemble this critter.