Let me start this off by agreeing with you – yes, this is a weird idea!

But when you work at the Herston Biofabrication Institute and spend most of your days working on neurosurgery and other medical projects, it hopefully makes a bit more sense why anyone would 3D print a “Merry Xmas” brain to decorate our office Christmas tree.

The design of this was quite simple and was based on some tutorials I’ve previously written about mashups and remixes – basically, taking 2 (or more) different files and joining them together in a new and creative way. The brain itself was downloaded here, and then the letters were quickly modelled in Solidworks and exported as individual STL files. All of this was then combined in Meshmixer, which is my go-to software for this type of mashup project (and it’s free for anyone looking to do the same).

This was 3D printed on my Craftbot Flow IDEX XL 3D printer in PLA, with a small hole drilled on the top afterwards to thread a piece of string through. And of course, I’m giving this design away for free to anyone crazy enough to also want a 3D printed Xmas brain decoration! Just click the links below to your preferred 3D print file website and enjoy:

Thingiverse, Cults, MyMiniFactory, Prusa, Pinshape.

Merry Christmas and happy 3D printing 🙂

– Posted by James Novak