Right at the end of 2016 local maker Tom Van den Bon decided to undertake an ambitious project: create a new 3D print for every single day of 2017.

With that year now over, Van den Bon has made good on his plans with hundreds of prints to show for it.

Those hoping to see exactly 365 different items will be disappointed, as some of the designs were joined together to make a larger model.

These multi-day prints created some of the standouts for the project such as a giant LEGO “minifigure” robot complete with motors in the arms for movement.

These larger endeavours inside of the overall project became a highlight for those keeping track with other great inclusions being a complete engine and a full size go kart.

Our favourite, however, was a collaborative design created by thirteen 3D printing enthusiasts to create a new kind of advent calendar. They designed and printed a giant tree which acted as the container for the smaller toys which went inside each day leading up to Christmas.

To stop the inpatient from simply doing everything at once, a new toy was released every day which could then be printed and inserted into the assigned slot. On Christmas day those taking part were greeted by something resembling this:

If you’d like to see every single print that was created for this project, there’s this handy gallery which has every single print in chronological order. It’s satisfying to see both the progress of the project as a whole as well as the multi-day prints come together as the time goes by.

Now for the big question: how much filament is needed to do something like this? We’ve been told an average of 51 kilograms was used, totalling around 16 kilometres of the stuff.

If you’re interested in seeing more you can watch a TV spot from a local programme as well as Van den Bon’s recently launched YouTube channel which he tells us will become a bigger focus of his in 2018, together with bigger, more complex creations and electronic builds featuring the Arduino and Raspberry Pi.

Van den Bon would like to thank the sponsors of the project: 3D Printing South Africa, AMS 3D Printers, Clinton Lee Taylor, Derek White, DIYElectronics, Filament Factory, GadgetBoy 3D Solutions, MarshLand3D, Morne Gouws and Signl.