3D Printing

Theo Jansen’s 3D Printed Strandbeest Family is Expanding

Meet the newest members of Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest 3D Printed Animal Family, Gracilis and Larva! Be sure and watch the video of Theo talking about these “animals” and how they survive in their “habitats.” These are adaptations of Theo Jansen’s Dutch beach creatures that come out of 3D printers fully assembled and ready to walk! Are they one of the cleanest examples in design with Selective Laser Sintering?

These are the now famed – thanks to many TV appearances, including QI with Stephen Fry – 3D printed beach creatures that emerge from the machine ready assembled and ready to walk: and by walk I mean like a centripetal centipedenal mass of legs in some kind of mecha-insectoid thriving hive of limbs that work with remarkable synchronicity to provide thrust in the horizontal and, to a degree, vertical axes.

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tocking along on a mechanical principle that can be scaled to quite Strandbeest-sizeable levels: the beach version that has also appeared on TV is as tall as a man!

Strandbeest 3D Printed Theo Jansen

They are indeed perhaps as claimed: ‘one of the cleanest examples of what is possible with Selective Laser Sintering.’ Theo’s Shapeways shop currently displays all of the Strandbeests  models, and they are also available via Shapeways’ Holiday Gift Guide, discounts are available on the site here.