EVA Pod from the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey

thingiverse

I teamed up with several members of the **Hutt City Library Staff** to tackle the massive project of printing the stunning [Discovery Model](https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:950664), created by the incredibly talented **metaform3d**. I've mentioned this before, but **metaform3d's** model is one of the most skillfully designed 3D printing models I've ever come across. Working on this project taught me a lot about what makes good design. We were excited to print off the EVA pod as a separate project, which also featured in the iconic films *2001: A Space Odyssey* and *2010 Odyssey 2*. I'd seen several models on Thingiverse, but they were just STL versions of the model that had been circulating around the web for years. Some people have managed to print them, but the digital model is poorly quality and not printable with most slicing programs, due to its low polygon count. I went back to the original base model in my archives, carefully made it all manifold, and then worked on smoothing the mesh. The result was a high-poly model with a smooth shape that can be printed with any slicer, even the older ones. I also added some supporting sections that snap off. The model will print successfully and neatly without needing the slicer to add support. Unfortunately, the original 3DS format file I based this model on is so old and had lost any attribution documents it may have had long before it ever got to me. Sadly, I have no way of attributing it to the person who first created it. There are a couple of errors in the model, particularly around the HAL port on the front and detailing in the back, but it still looks the part. The model shown here in the photos has the rear right top port inset when it should really be proud of the surface. This was an error on my part from not looking at the original stills from the film and thinking it was an error on the original model. I have corrected this in the STLs I have put up here. With regard to painting it, I took a couple of liberties. The original in the films is white for almost all of the manipulators. In the painted model here, there are silver sections. Well, I'd primed them in black expecting them to be silver before checking the source images. I figured there were already a couple of inaccuracies, so why not another one. It took 11 hours to print the main body and about 12 minutes for each of the arms. The size used here was chosen to ensure the manipulator arms were a diameter that could have a standard rod size used in place of the printed lengths. As printed, the arms are strong enough on their own and have sufficient definition that I didn't need to redo them with dowels.