Bicycle shops are already places where a pretty dazzling array of mechanical engineering feats are accomplished (after all, a bicycle shop built the first airplane), and happily this tradition continues with a plethora of bicycle widgets from the classic to the cutting edge, and from straightforward keep-it-going fixes like this one to pure artistic expression, enabled by 3D printers.

(Little wonder also that a recent episode of MakerBot TV featured a whole-bike makeover.)

What can I say, I’m a sucker for a pretty sprocket.  And this pinwheel extruder drive gear is just gorgeous, and shows off that principle I keep going on about where making things more detailed or adding fiddly bits or cutting cool-shaped holes doesn’t really change the cost when you’re 3D printing.

The geared extruder module these gears are for also gets a fair bit of love from the community, probably because it’s such a large, inviting gear to add widgets to.  (Speaking of cool things with gears, that heavy-duty-looking gear box I linked a while ago?  Ended up driving a dimmer switch.  Which is awesome.)

The original model of this dinosaur skull was printed using a commercial machine with soluble supports, but the Makerbotted version looks pretty darned good.  Splitting it in two pieces and printing it fairly large reportedly did wonders for the print quality.  A great model, and really excellent print quality here!

Even without a 3D Printer they’re pretty amazingly versatile, but with a 3D Printer they are also a lathe, a centrifuge, a CNC Mill Head and here, a turbine that you could use as the basis for, say, a shop vac.  (Note to modelers the first person to make a mostly-printable shop vac based on a rotary tool will probably be hailed as some kind of Maker Superhero.)

The maker of this thing warns that, as the inside of that sleek dome is basically filled with plastic rectangles moving at high radial velocity, one should be quite careful and use eye protection when turning it on for the first time, which can mean the difference between an awesome lab accident story and the story of why you’re wearing an eye patch weeks after Halloween.

Because this right here?  Unmitigated awesome.

It’s moments like this– where I realize someone has compartmentalized the development of a complex toy which had a fair chance of going extinct until, well, arguably yesterday when this was uploaded, and made it into a downloadable file, where I just feel a little awed, humbled, and honored to be around to see and comment on such things.

I think we live in an age where, if you aren’t constantly amazed, you’re doing something wrong.