Fun Stuff

Webcam + Laser = Budget 3-D Scanner

In what may signal the end to expensive — and easily broken plastic — repair parts for your printer and other equipment [don’t you hate that it’s always a small plastic part that inevitably breaks and hobbles the whole equipment?], a young engineer has built a cheap 3D scanner with little more than a webcam and a laser that can easily machine cheap replacement parts. He plans to market it for about $200.

In fact, Andy Barry, a research engineer in the Autodesk Innovations Lab at NASA Ames Research Laboratory in Mountain View, California wants to “build a million of them, and get it out to everybody.

Watch for the 3D Scanner through the MakerBot store as early as this fall.

[wired]