“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

—Edgar Allan Poe

Update! July 25, 2015: We built it! Photos and videos below! Thanks to Digital Harbor Foundation Tech Center for giving us an awesome place to build, and thanks to our Fabricators Steph and Shawn, Amber, Amy, and of course Todd and Marty.

We're doing something a little bit different this time. We’re going to try to guide the randomness of the final sculpture by asking you to print with darker filament for the hair, and lighter colors for the skin. The previous two projects were created from 3D scans of existing sculptures, but this one is an original piece and was designed in ZBrush. Ryan Kittleson sculpted this wonderful caricature bust of Baltimore's most famous writer, Edgar Allan Poe.

What's special about this project is that we're separating the project into dark and light pieces. The hair and shirt of Poe are going to be made from darker colors. You've got your blacks, purples, deep blues, browns etc, and then the skin and scarf of Poe is going to be lighter colors. Whites, pastels, etc. You are able to select which color you'd prefer before the system assigns you a part, so choose wisely! We'd like the final piece to be consistent, so if you go all crazy and try to use bright red for his nose, we'll ask you to reprint it and reject the part.

One of the reasons we chose to create this sculpture of Poe is because of his ties to Baltimore. We The Builders was formed at a hackathon in Baltimore, so it seemed fitting. Ryan Kittleson, an original We The Builders team member is a talented digital sculpture and really took his time making this caricature of Poe look so interesting. He said, "Poe is such a great subject for caricature because he is very recognizable and his facial features are very unique. The challenge was to try and do it in a way that hasn't been done before since so many caricatures have been made of him already."

Using Netfabb, we've sliced up the model into 250 pieces and now need your help to bring it to life! We've scaled Edgar Allan Print so that he'll be the same height as George, and Ben, about 33" tall. The files have been prepared, rotated for proper build orientation, saved as STLs and have been named with their coordinates! All you need to do is select the color of the part you’d like to print below, and get started!

So far we've seen ABS, PLA, PHA, wood, resin, metal plated, UV reactive, bronze filled, glow-in-the-dark, and multicolor dyed and filament swapped parts. For Poe, we want to tie a theme together and have dark and light parts, but still get that patchwork randomness pattern. While we're encouraging creativity, please don't try to ruin it for us by printing a dark colored face section, or a light colored part for the dark hair and shirt sections. There are a few pieces which will be internal and won't be seen once the sculpture is completed. It doesn't matter what color these parts are printed in. If you want one of these specifically, click the 'Any color' button below.

Also just like last time, please use a permanent marker to 'tag' your part's XYZ coordinates on an "inside" face. You'll be able to see your part's coordinates here on the website. It's also in the name of the STL file which is checked out to you.

Again, please be sure to tag your print with its coordinates (and your signature or any custom message you like) before shipping! I even got a riddle last time. "What washes up on tiny beaches?"

The Poe caricature will be made of 250 pieces, our most inclusive sculpture yet!

We decided to make each piece smaller to allow more people to participate, make each print job quicker, allow for more colors, and to allow the printers with a smaller build volume a chance to help, too!

We hope to have more than 200 builders on this project, so please tell everyone you know with a printer to help out! If you’re feeling generous, why not print two? Once your first part is accepted, you’ll be able to claim a new one, so keep coming back to WeTheBuilders.com to check in on the progress.

The target for delivery is June 4th, so we're hoping to get every part printed and shipped to Baltimore.

Please tell anyone you know with a 3D printer to sign up at WeTheBuilders.com to help out! Join our Facebook group to help spread the word, and if you're working on this project, share about it! If you aren't getting any emails from us and would like to, click here to sign up for email alerts so we can let you know when we start our next project

Special thanks to Ryan Kittleson for creating the sculpture. You can see more of his work at his personal website, ryankittleson.com.



Tinkerine Studios has agreed again to reimburse some of the shipping costs for this project. After the project is complete, we’ll send out a form for you to fill out to help process the reimbursement if you want. Tinkerine Studios is a public company 3D printing company based in Vancouver, BC. and are the makers of the DittoPro, Litto, Ditto+, and DittoPro 3D printers, as well as TinkerineU, an online database of STEAM curriculum for educators wanting to incorporate 3D printing into the classroom.

If you’re feeling extra printy, download the raptor hand files here and print one of those out for us too. We’re part of an effort here in Baltimore to create free prosthetic hands to kids born without a hand, or to those who’ve lost hands due to injury, both locally and abroad. We’ve been training the local Boy Scout troops as well as members of other scout-like organizations how to put the hands together. We’re holding a big workshop for this on June 13th.

We need hands in sizes 100% to 140%, at 5% increments, so choose a random size and print it out and send it in along with your Poe part if you can. No need to assemble them, we just need the printed parts.

You can include printed hands in your We The Builders shipment, or send them separately, directly to the hand collection site at:

1260 Stevens Avenue

Baltimore, MD 21227

Please don’t send Poe parts there by mistake though! Use the address provided to you by the system once your part gets approved.

Thank you all so much for your help on the sculptures as well as the prosthetics.