I've always had a supreme fascination with 3D printing, but I never got to sit down and learn it. As students at Syracuse University, we have access to a plethora of 3D printers through the SU Makerspace located in the Kimmel Computer Cluster. If you plug in 311 Waverly Avenue, just look or this sign! 

There are ten different brands of 3D printers in the Makerspace:

MakerBot2 3D Printer
MakerBot2x 3D Printer
MakerBot 5th Generation
The Gigabot (with 30x the printing volume)
Stratasys Mojo 3D Printer
Maker Gear M Series
Printrbot 1405
Form 1 Stereolithography 3D Printer
Printrbot Plus

There are more than one of some of the models, so it's easy to get access to a printer. Filament is free, depending on the size of your project. If you exceed the free weight limit, filament runs $0.10 per gram and you can buy it in the Makerspace. You can also provide your own filament, which costs about $30 for a big roll. Check out filament comparisons here.

Now you may be wondering how 3D printing relates to Virtual Reality. Well, in order to mount our 6 GoPro cameras to point in 6 different directions to create a 360 coverage,  we use a custom-made 3D printed GoPro mounting rig.

3D printing a 360 rig is relatively simple. There are plenty of free resources online where you can print models that have already been made. Here are some for easy access:

1. Mount Design by RaymondHOPK

   

2. Mount Design by martin19791121 

3. Designed by friloba

By allowing the provided hyperlinks, you can download the 3D printer file from Thingiverse and bring it to the SU Makerspace to print your own rig. Assembly instructions are provided on each rig design page.