We The Builders, a creative team based in Baltimore recently launched their crowd sourced 3D printed sculpture titled “Distributed Benjamin Franklin”. The bust they wanted to create is a replica of a contemporary piece of Benjamin Franklin. The sculpture was initially scanned by Direct Dimension, a Baltimore scanning company, and its model was then sliced up using netfabb into 198 pieces. The sculpture was scaled up such that the final piece will be of a similar height to George, measuring at 33” tall.
We The Builders is a crowd sourced 3D printing project whose first project – the George Crowdsourcington sculpture was completed and made its debut at the NY 3D Print Show, and thereafter traveled all across the country to more than a dozen events.
The second project works in a manner similar to the first project. What this means is that any person with access to a 3D printer is able to log in and download a single block of the sculpture, 3D print it, and then mail it back to Baltimore where all the gluing together takes place. The team behind We The Builders has since announced that the 198-piece 3D printed “Distributed Ben Franklin” puzzle is completed.
