MakerBot Industries

Since I started working at MakerBot Industries, the company has hired about eight more people. I started in September, so that means that every week, one or two new employees join the MakerBot team. Recently, I tagged along for one of the orientation tours. Here is what I saw:

Spools and Spools of Plastic: Some black plastic sits atop a box in the garage. This is the view from just in front of Bre’s car. It’s fun to imagine what all of those boxes filled with plastic might someday become.

Boxes o’ Parts: Each MakerBot Cupcake CNC or Thing-o-matic build kit comes with laser cut housing. This is where they live as they wait to be shipped to their new homes.

More Plastic: Plastic spools in limbo. These spools have been liberated from their oppressive boxes in the garage, but have not yet found a new home. Perhaps they will become part of a Mega Rainbow plastic pack.

Bagged Hardware: Feeding your MakerBot is a little easier with the Deluxe Filament Spindle & Box MK1 Kit. The kit keeps your plastic organized and on its spool on the bottom of your MakerBot.

Clear Plastic Cups: All of the nuts and bolts you need to assemble your Cupcake CNC are hand sorted with these pretty plastic cups. We call the finished product, which includes all the hardware you need to assemble your MakerBot, a hardware burrito.

Labeled Boxes: Each plastruder – that thing that turns your plastic into parts – is supported by metal rods that allow the plastruder to travel up and down. Some people call this the “z” direction, and hence the name – Z rod. This box stores finished Z rods.

Products Ready to Ship: Ever dreamed of using your MakerBot to frost a cake? Well, it’s perfectly possible with a Frostruder. They are currently in stock and ready to go.

Toolboxes: As MakerBot Industries rapidly expands, we have to have new tools. Charles Pax happily labels a new drawer where snips, wire cutters, and X-acto blades will live.

Packaging Material: A giant spool of packaging material used by shippers safely bundles MakerBots for their journeys into the wide, wide world.

Storage Racks: We have a very sophisticated technique for naming our shelves. We number them. We have ten so far.

Supplies for Experimentation: You never know what you will find on the shelves where the Research and Development department stores its stuff. In this case, it’s an experimental plastic.

The Vintage BMW: If you ever come to the the Botcave, you will probably get a glimpse of Bre’s 1979 BMW. It rests alongside hundreds of pounds of plastic spools in the garage. It needs a little work.

Techs at Work: A production technician lays out laser cut parts in preparation to assemble a Thing-o-matic.

Photos of cute baby animals: Puppy and kitty calendars peppered throughout the Botcave remind us what life is all about.