Amos Dudley writes about personal hardware projects such as 3D-printed cameras, custom tooth aligners, and printed protective gear for his dog.
Commenters find the camera and 3D-printed orthodontics posts fascinating, especially the shutter mechanism, and link them as examples of DIY engineering.
Video editing, 3D part packing -- anything other off-label uses for Blender?
http://amosdudley.com/weblog/Stochastic-Part-Packing | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15187108
> We used Blender’s physics engine to pour parts into a virtual volume, then exploited its collision-avoidance behavior to re-sort them into a tight 3D packing optimized for overlapping concavity.
I think this article was mostly a summary of the engineer’s personal blog post: http://amosdudley.com/weblog/SLO-Camera - linked from the post with example photos in another comment.
Reminded of the guy who straightened his teeth in 16 weeks for $60 (with access to a university 3D printer):
https://amosdudley.com/weblog/Ortho
There's a more detailed tutorial on how to use physics to do 3D part packing here:
http://amosdudley.com/weblog/Stochastic-Part-Packing
The blog about the camera is fascinating too, especially the shutter mechanism:
http://amosdudley.com/weblog/SLO-Camera
https://amosdudley.com/weblog/Designing-PPE-for-Hilde has a story of designing a 3d print for foxtails.