3Duino helps you rapidly create interactive 3D-printed devices

Every few months, some new software comes along that promises to make some complex engineering discipline accessible to everyone. Such software rarely lives up to the developer’s claims, because the claims are far too ambitious. But what if the scope is more reasonable? 3Duino seems capable of actually producing interactive 3D-printed device designs in just seconds.

3Duino is an integrated software and hardware platform developed by an international team from Simon Fraser University, the University of Texas at Dallas, and Florida State University. Working within some clear and reasonable constraints, it can pop out designs for simple interactive devices.

It works like this: you give it a 3D model, define input functions you want it to have, set the output functions you want it to be capable of, configure parameters for each of those, and describe the interaction logic you want using natural language. 3Duino will then modify the 3D model for the desired movement, add points to mount the required components, give you a bill of materials, and provide the code to make everything work.

For that to be possible, 3Duino needs basic hardware to build on. The team selected an Arduino Nano 33 BLE Rev2 on a custom PCB with additional hardware options to enable the user’s chosen functions. So if the user chooses to have a touch sensor cause an arm to rotate 90 degrees, 3Duino will call for a four-channel capacitive touch sensor board, DC motors, and motor drivers.

There are many limitations here, but that is reassuring. Those limitations show us that the developers are being realistic. But even with those limitations, 3Duino has enough flexibility to be useful. It seems particularly well suited to electronic toys and other simple devices.

You can read more in the team’s paper here.

Image credit: Y. Shi et al.

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