When you’re a maker and you want to show your love to someone, a bouquet of roses that will die in a few days isn’t good enough. At least not for Daren Schwenke, who created a 3D printed blossoming rose for his love, Christine.
Schwenke, a technical consultant at HP who describes himself as a “jack of all trades, master of some,” was inspired to create something for his partner on Valentine’s Day.
He tried to finish the 3D printed rose within one day, but the task was too difficult. If you have time though, it’s an awesome 3D printed design which will last much longer than a regular old rose.
Schwenke’s idea came from another maker’s work, Jiří Praus, who created an animated wireframe tulip. Schwenke ran with this idea, adding tweaks and modifications as needed.
His rose has clear printed petals and a wireframe. When the rose’s leaf is touched, the flower blossoms and LEDs light up the petals. The result is ethereal and very reminiscent of Beauty and the Beast, except the final petal will never fall thanks to it being made from nylon.
Dedicated to Schwenke’s Biggest Supporter of Whatever His “Obsession of the Week” Is
Schwenke 3D printed the petals, stem and leaves of the rose. The side stem’s print incorporated a magnet wire touch sensor. The design also involves a magnet wire for the LEDs.
Although the rose appears to blossom by magic, there are clever tech-based hacks at play. For example, Schwenke included a magnetic wire touch sensor which trips an Arduino-controlled actuator to make the rose bloom.
“The plan was, and is… a couple Dotstar modules for color, clear petals, servo for animated blooming, Arduino for control, touch activated,” said Schwenke via his build log.
“Oh, and CC Open Source with attribution licensing of course, so I can have your (significant other) wondering who Christine is and what she has to do with your present,” Schwenke joked.
To create the rose petals, Schwenke 3D printed them flat and then shaped them over a hot chandelier bulb. Part of the reason he failed to deliver the rose within 24 hours was that his initial plan of winging 3D interleaving petals “was a bit too challenging,” he wrote.
However, we’re sure Christine is delighted with the final result and by Schwenke’s lovely tribute. He writes: “Dedicated to the one who has tolerated my obsession of the week for nearly two decades.”
For more on ways to show your love with 3D printing, check out these articles:
Source: Hackaday
License: The text of "3D Printed Rose Blossoms and Lights Up When Touched" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.