MakerBot Industries

On this week’s live webstream did a quick video tour of today’s Botcave Store Grand Opening!  If you haven’t heard, MakerBot has opened a small popup retail space at their headquarters in Brooklyn.

87 3rd Ave (Closest Subway: Atlantic Pacific 2/3/4/5/D/N/R/Q)

Tuesday-Saturday 12-6pm.

Come on down!

Have you seen the sharp hooves on the fine filly above? This MakerBot Unicorn Pen Plotter could be yours on the 11th of December.¹

Charged with setting up a Unicorn station at Botacon² , I decided I would take this opportunity to give away four of these kits as prizes for making contributions to the MakerBot Unicorn/pen plotting community.³

So the goals of this contest are two-fold –

• to encourage coders and scripters to make the process of designing for the Unicorn⁴ easier by making the pipeline from drawing to printable design simple, and
• to encourage artists/designers to create work to be plotted on a MakerBot Unicorn Pen Plotter

The winner of each prize will be announced during Botacon 0 on Dec. 11th.

Inkscape-to-Makerbot-Gcode Challenge

Goal: Create an open source Inkscape plugin or extension allowing a MakerBot Operator to take a 2D SVG vector-based image and create printable MakerBot Unicorn gcode in one step. Share your code/extension at Thingiverse.com with the tags “unicorn” + “inkscapechallenge”, perhaps linking to a project page explaining how to use your tool.

Right now, the best tool for translating vector-based images into printable gcode is Scribbles⁵. One of the best open source, cross-platform tools for creating vector-based art is Inkscape, a fabulous SVG editor. Currently, optimal workflow for connecting these two tools is rather complicated.

There is already work going on to generate gcode from Inkscape. The Eggbot community are really pushing Inkscape-for-pen-plotting really far, even using Inkscape as its host printing software. So jump in and bring all of these initiatives together by create a single, optimized tool.

Fill/Tone/Crosshatching Tool Challenge

Goal: Create an open source Inkscape plugin that makes life easier for designers by helping them to generate and manage hatches (one direction), crosshatches (two+ layers of lines), and other line patterns as a means of simulating tones and solid blocks when pen-plotting. Share your code/extension at Thingiverse.com with the tags “unicorn” + “crosshatchchallenge”, perhaps linking to a project page explaining how to use your tool.

You cannot use a fill command with a MakerBot Unicorn, only the path of the pen tool itself, so creating rich vector-based art on a plotter requires the “fill” elements to be re-interpreted as hatches, crosshatches, dithering, pebbling patterns, and other marks that through direction and nearness of lines create the sensation of tone and saturation of color. This is a similar problem to how Skeinforge 3D prints volumes by converting “solids” into a labyrinth of lines to match the density requested in the “fill” settings.”

I’m a massive fan of the Inkscape Eggbot Extensions and use them all the time in my Unicorn design work. Look to the official plugin that assigns preset values to the Inkscape “Hatches (Rough)” Path Effects tool to tame it for plotting — a great place to start! Bonus points if your tool can be used by the Eggbot community as well as the MakerBot community.

Favorite Robots Design Challenge – Single-Pass & Multi-Pass

Goal:  Create a Creative Commons-licensed portrait of a favorite robot (real or imaginary) and post jpg/svg/gcode to Thingiverse.com between Nov 26th and Dec 10th with tags: “favoriterobot” + “unicorn”. One Unicorn will be awarded to a “single-pass” (i.e. single pen) illustration, and one to a “multi-pass” (ie swapping tools for multiple colors) illustration.

Those participating in the visual design challenges will get this additional bonus: I have, as far as I know, the only herd of Unicorns⁶ currently out there in the wild. So as the contest continues, I will be making use of this herd to print and share work submitted to the contest on Thingiverse and on the blog here. And I am arranging a Botacon 0 Thingiverse Unicorn-art gallery show, so even if you don’t win the challenge, I will be happy to show off your work.⁷

As the work to be judged will be printed on the Unicorn Herd from the files you supply, make sure to include a jpg, svg, and gcode version of your art (even if you can’t print it!) by following a process similar to this tutorial. Learn more about the MakerBot Unicorn on our wiki here and with these tutorials-in-progress.

1. Or rather a kit to allow you to create one like this. [↩]
2. I’m bringing 3 Cupcakes configured for pen plotting-on-demand during the event. [↩]
3. And anyone in the MakerBot/Thingiverse.com community can participate in this project whether or not s/he yet has a Unicorn Pen Plotter. [↩]
4. and other gcode pen plotters [↩]
5. a Python script adapted by the inventor of the MakerBot Unicorn, Will Langford, from MakerBot co-founder Zach’s Lunchlines script for the Frostruder [↩]
6. Well, if three makes a herd. [↩]
7. And I will have the gcode handy for the Unicorn Herd to print your work as well. [↩]

Ethan (13 years old) came in to the Botcave today and bought a MakerBot Cupcake CNC Ultimate Kit. We’ve sold a few MakerBot Cupcake Ultimate kits today and been able to hand them over to real people. It’s been great being able to meet customers in real life!

If you’re in NYC, you’re invited to stop into the MakerBot Botcave retail store and say hi and purchase a MakerBot kit too! We’re open Noon to 8pm from Tuesday to Saturday.

@gmchar was the first customer today. Visiting from the Netherlands on a tour of hackerspaces, he stocked up on MakerBot and Arduino supplies.

We also had visitors from the West coast come by and get a MakerBot Cupcake Ultimate for a young inventor in the family named Caleb. Congrats!

The MakerBot Botcave Store Opens today! We will be open from Noon to 8pm Tuesday through Saturday until December 24th.

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We’re all set up. What do we have right now for you to just walk in and buy?

MakerBot Kits: MakerBot Cupcake CNC Kits, Sanguinos, TTL Cables, LED strips, pen plotters, extruders, filament spindle boxes, scanner kits, and ABS plastic in all colors.

Adafruit Kits: USBtiny, Minty Boosts, Motor Shields, Drawdios, TVBGones, Wave Shileds and Brain Machine kits!

Evil Mad Science: LED Menoras, Diavolinos, Larson Scanners, Meggy Jr. RGB Game kits, and Bulbdial clock kits.

Arduino: Besides the Sanguino and Diavolino, which are both arduino variants, we’ve got Arduinos and Megas in stock!

Jimmy Rodgers: LOL Shields and Open Heart kits.

W&L: Video Game Shield

We’ll have more kits arriving soon and we’ll keep you posted here on the blog when we put them on the shelves!

Stop on by! We’ll have a MakerBotted object to give away to every visitor!

Completely Printed Chess Set

Not only have I finished printing a full chess set, but the black pieces are in ABS while the clear/white-opaque pieces are in PLA.¹  When I was rocking my MK4 Plastruder² the 5 pound roll of PLA I had purchased was a sore subject for me.  Given the amount of heartache I went through trying to print with clear PLA, it seemed a natural foil to a black ABS side.

Basking in the warmth that follows a nice big Thanksgiving dinner I played chess against my younger brother, whom I haven’t bested in about ten years³ , on a board made by our father, using pieces designed by cbiffle, and printed on my MakerBot.  After a hard fought game⁴ with only nine pieces left on the board, I was up a knight, offered a draw, and we shook on a good game.⁵⁶⁷

1. Printing a full chess set has been on my to-do list for nearly a year, even before I had an operational 3D printer. [↩]
2. If you’ve got a MK4 Plastruder, I highly highly recommend upgrading to the MK5.  I could gush for days about my MK5.  You really deserve an extruder like this. [↩]
3. In chess.  Well, or anything else for that matter… [↩]
4. With much kibitzing from our dad. [↩]
5. Call me a coward, but I’d rather offer the draw while I was up, rather than fumble the endgame and get brow beaten by a pawn I forgot to take.    [↩]
6. See Allan?  I’m not ALL bravado! [↩]
7. Now, where’s did I place that printed thimble I keep all my humility in??? [↩]