Personalized 3D Printed Game Piece

Ever lost a piece to your favorite board game and had to use a button or a paperclip as a replacement. Now, replace your lost pieces in style, with a 3D printed bust of yourself! This instructable is going to show you how easy it is to scan and print a bust of yourself.

And remember, our MakerSpace always has someone on hand to help you if you get stuck.

Stuff to bring:

• Yourself, looking your best!
• Either bring the board game you want to add a piece to, or have a general idea about how big the piece can be (remember to measure in 3 dimensions)

Stuff you’ll use at the library:

• Reconstruct Me installed on a desktop PC to scan yourself
• Cura to scale and slice your scan and prepare it for the 3D printer
• A LulzBot Taz 5 3D printer to make your game piece

• Open up ReconstructMe
• Make sure under SURFACE you have selected Selfie 3D (they will take care of the rest of the settings)
• Move the Kinect camera to the edge of the desk
• In ReconstructMe change settings under VOLUME to make sure you are visible to the camera.
  • We recommend:
  • Offset: ~250mm
  • Size: ~1300mm (depending on how tall you are try lowering the chair as much as possible.
• We are about to begin the scan. ReconstructMe will give you a countdown to when the scan begins. Once it starts slowly begin spinning in the chair. Here are some tips and tricks:
  • Try not to let the chair roll anywhere from the original position.
  • Use your feet to take tiny tiny steps in a circle keep it slow and steady.
  • The scan lasts a while, so remember to hold your facial expression the whole time!
• Alright! We are ready to hit start! Give it a go. If you mess up the first time, it only takes a minute to try again, so just keep going until you get it right.

• When ReconstructMe is done compiling your scan, take a look (use the mouse to drag your view around and see your scan from every angle).
• If you are satisfied SAVE your scan as an STL file (yes you will lose color info but you don’t need that to print). If you need to edit your file, use 3D builder to remove any extra objects in the environment that might have been caught in the scan and split the scan just to be your bust.
• If you edited the file, save it as an STL and take it to the laptop attached to the 3D printer by either saving it to an online file service, using a USB drive or emailing it to yourself.

• Use the scale function to size your game piece. If you don’t have a specific game in mind, we recommend making your print 1.25in tall (or about 30mm).
• CURA is a pretty fantastic program and will take care of the printer setting for you. Select your material (PLA) and consider printing a support structure (that helps support your chin during the printing process).
• Once the printer is up to temperature, hit print and watch the magic happen!
• Once your game piece is done, it is time to play!