Just for fun

Engineering, Just for fun, Space, Uncategorized

3D printed Solar Orbiter


Our 3D printed prototype of the Solar Orbiter spacecraft, made in plastic at 1:32 scale (main body is approx 6cm cube). Lots of great detail, it’s made from the polygon model we animated in our video for ESA, which in turn was made from CAD data, with some additions (such as MLI wrapping and mirror

Read More

Illustration, Just for fun

Fractal science


Ok, not so much of the science in this post – but still very pretty.  Apophysis is a fractal flame generator, which essentially takes the usual Julia, Mandlebrot, etc. fractals, and puts them through a series of geometric transforms to create some interesting patters (for those of you obsessed with 3D: YES YOU CAN RENDER

Read More

Biology, Illustration, Just for fun

Lego building blocks (a.k.a. DNA)


OK, well here’s something I’m sure you’ve all wanted to do – build cool sciencey stuff out of Lego….. I’m sure this isn’t the way real Lego builders do it, but should be possible to get some really cool (and really precise effects). Imagine taking any 3D model, sculpture, CAD model, and recreating a scale

Read More