3-D Printing the Ulitmate Deep-Sea Christmas Tree

Armed with the lab’s trusty Ultimaker 3-D printer, our imaginations, and endless source of inspiration that is deep-sea life and science, my lab and I set out to create a deep-sea themed Christmas Tree.

The goal was to create a tree where the top represented the ocean’s surface and the base representing the abyssal floor. With a series of white, blue, and black ribbon and silver and blue miniature bulb ornaments, we created the effect of attenuated light as you move deeper. We wanted to make sure to include both a remotely operated vehicle on a lighted tether as well as lighted bathysphere. The tree also included a giant squid attacking a shark and whale fall complete with crabs and eels. We also made some tiny experimental wood falls to resemble the real ones we now have deployed all over the Gulf of Mexico.

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You can print all of these decorations yourself. The complete collection can be found in my Thingiverse collection and include:

• The research vessel on top is the ICE – the icebreaker by vandragon_de (with the addition of little printed A-frame for the aft deck.
• The basic and blocky (or to sound like a sophisticated maker low-poly) remote operated vehicle was designed by us.
• Giant Squid by TheGreenFilament
• Shark! Sliced to Print by MacGyver
• Starfish model by Empiricus
• The Voyage of the Bathysphere by themindseye
• LOW POLY CRAB by RaffoSan (for whale fall)
• Eel by Benc (for whale fall)
• Whale by YahooJAPAN (whale for whale fall)
• Giant Deep-sea Isopod by the one and only Andrew_Thaler. (The model is actually based on a real specimen in our lab.)
• Puffer Fish (of awesomeness) by Dinoman (garland)
• A simple log by Montravont
• Vampire Squid by sinryan
• Hammerhead Shark by pmoews