If you love 3D printing but wish your creations could move, light up, or even be remote-controlled, we’ve got something awesome for you! A brand-new Kickstarter project called CyberBrick: Beyond Bricks is blowing up in the 3D printing world, and it’s perfect for anyone who wants to build cool, interactive toys and gadgets with their printer.
Credits: CyberBrick™
What is CyberBrick?
Think of CyberBrick as a mix of LEGO, electronics, and 3D printing—all in one. It lets you print your own parts and add smart electronics to make them come to life. Imagine printing a car and actually controlling it with a remote, or building a robot that reacts to its environment!
Why is everyone so excited?
- Works with your 3D printer – Print the parts yourself and customize them however you want.
- Add electronics easily – Snap in motors, lights, and sensors without needing to be an expert.
- No coding required (but you can code if you want) – Use an app to program your creations, or go deeper with MicroPython.
- Community & sharing – You can even sell your designs or download cool ones from other makers!
Perfect for Bambu 3D printer users
Credits: CyberBrick™
If you have a Bambu Lab 3D printer but can’t use Bambu Studio on your computer, don’t worry—REALvision Online makes it easy to create amazing 3D prints without installing any program. You can customize and slice everything right from your browser! Now you can try it for 14 days for free!
Join the CyberBrick Revolution!
The Kickstarter campaign is already a huge success, and early backers will start getting their CyberBrick kits as soon as April 2025. Want to check it out? Visit their Kickstarter page here.
How to start printing in REALvision Online?
Read the step-by-step instructions here.
Happy Printing!
*All Photo Credits: CyberBrick™
Good to know – General terms related to 3d printing
| 3D printers If you have bought a cheap desktop 3D printer like an FDM printer from Creality but you are not satisfied with the quality of the Creality slicer, then you are not the only one. Historically those printers were sold as kits for 3D printer enthusiasts developing 3D printers themselves such as the RepRap project. Today most 3D printer enthusiasts just want to spend time on printing and not on fixing the 3D printer. This is why slicing and the slicing software is a big part of the success of 3D printing. |
| Filament In Fused Filament Deposition technology, also known as Fused Filament Fabrication, the spool of filament is the material used to build the 3D part by melting the plastic out of the nozzle of the 3D printer. The printer extrudes the filament line by line, layer by layer, by increasing the z-axis, and will build the 3D printed part. |
| STL files STL files are three-dimensional geometries CAD files based on a list of triangles defining the wireframe or the outside shell of the 3D object geometry. There are two types of STL files: they can be ASCII or Binary. The binary STL file format is more size optimized (takes less byte size) while the Ascii STL file format is humanly readable (can be opened in a text editor) and defines the tessellation (list of triangles creating the 3D polygon). To define a triangle the STL file format is a list of triangles made from 3 vertex or 3D vectors. Of course, there are a lot of triangles and they are fairly small so those triangles next to each other define the meshes of your STL 3D print file. |
| CAD / 3D CAD softwares CAD stands for Computer-Aided Design, it is the software part of CAD-CAM solution where you create your 3D designs or more precisely create your 3D models (actual 3D geometries). You can use beginner CAD software like Tinkercad, Google Sketchup, or more advanced CAD software like Autodesk Inventor, using Solidworks, 3DS, Autocad, or even parametric CAD design software like Openscad (script-based CAD software). All CAD software can export a CAD file under different file formats, but without a doubt, the most popular one is the STL file format. |
| GCODE files Gcode files are the files used for 3D printing. There are two types of Gcode files they can be ASCII or Binary, the Ascii files have a bigger file size and are humanly readable, while binary files are not humanly readable. You can easily preview an Ascii Gcode instruction by opening it in a text editor. The file extension or file format is .gcode and is generated from a CAM software usually named a slicer. |
| CAM / Slicer 3D printing software A CAM software in 3D printing is most commonly called a slicer. Slicers are used to create Gcode files. For beginner and intermediate users, you can use online slicers like the online slicer REALvision online; or for expert users, you can use slicers like REALvision Pro, Cura, Ultimaker Cura, Simplify 3D, Creality slicer or Slic3r. A slicer lets you manipulate the STL and then takes a planar cut or cross-section cut of your STL 3D design and automatically generates the movement instruction of your 3D printer (the toolpath) as well as all the repositioning and print strategy of the 3D printer. The filename generated from the slicer or CAM is called a GCODE file and the file format is a .gcode. You can usually simulate the 3D print result by looking at a slicer 3D viewer. |
| A CAD-CAM solution is a combination of creating a 3D design, preparing the manufacturing of the part and ultimately automatically manufacturing the party using an FDM 3D printer or a 3D printing service (like Shapeways, 3Dwarehouse |
| 3D printing Services To print 3D files you can use printing 3D files services such as Shapeways or Materialise. You can upload your STL files and they will ship your 3d prints to your home for a fee. |
| Marketplace If you are not confident in designing your STL 3D files yourself you can download a lot of STL files for free on websites like Thingiverse or Cult 3D where there are thousands of free STL files to choose from. |