MakerBot Industries

We are a runner up in the Next Gen 2010 Metropolis Competition:

CUPCAKE CNCMakerBot IndustriesBrooklynThey call it “the cutest rapid-prototyping machine ever.” It also happens to be the cheapest. The Cupcake CNC, by the Brooklyn tech collective MakerBot Industries, lets architects, designers, and DIY enthusiasts manufacture their own 3-D curios on a desktop printer vaguely reminiscent of a robot-armed teddy-bear picker—for less than $1,000. Standard 3-D printers run around $10,000 and up. The key: build it yourself. The Cupcake CNC comes as a kit that can be assembled with household tools in about four days. Then it’s ready to print models dreamed up in CAD or downloaded from www.thingiverse.com, a resource of free digital-design ideas that includes a Gothic cathedral and—upping the nerd quotient here—a trophy from Settlers of Catan. Objects print in ABS or PLA, a biodegradable plastic made of Nebraska corn. Soon, an extrude feature will make it possible to squeeze out almost any imaginable material: silicon, clay, frosting. “Everyone should be able to create things inexpensively and on their desktop,” says MakerBot’s Bre Pettis. “It lets ordinary people become innovators.” All-frosting cupcakes, here we come!

( Will Langford, an intern at MakerBot Industries, printed out this three-by-five-inch logo, made of ABS plastic, on a MakerBot 3-D printer.)

via Next Gen 2010: The Runners-Up | Metropolis Magazine.