New Thingiverse feature – it’s a work in progress
Huzzah for progress!
When MakerBot hired Marty McGuire (aka, the infamous Schmarty) to work on Thingiverse they didn’t just hire a web warrior, they apparently hired a man who is as stealthy as a ninja. A few days ago a new Thingiverse feature was stealth-released.1
While editing one of my Things I noticed that there was a new option. Under the “Details” tab, just above “Save your thing,” the new option reads, “Work in Progress [checkbox] Is this thing a Work in Progress?”
I used to be hesitant to share unfinished designs. What I came to realize is that sometimes even an unfinished idea can be a powerful thing. With the derivative system on Thingiverse, people are able to design a variation on someone else’s work and then upload it as a derivative. The citizens of Thingiverse have been really amazing at improving upon other people’s ideas – whether they were finished designs, unfinished designs, or even just the seed of a design concept. Admittedly, such innovation isn’t for everyone. Now, with the “Work in Progress” flag it will be very easy to see whether an idea is ready for prime-time or whether it needs a little spit and polish before it is workable. With a standardized way to designate a design as a “Work in Progress” designers also won’t need to clutter their titles or descriptions with such disclaimers.2
Thanks Marty!
- Photo courtesy of Daniel*1977 [↩]
- For some reason I tended to go overboard “Proposed draft design for a preliminary sketch of an idea … on scratch paper” [↩]
| Tagged with | marty, new features, progress, schmarty, Thingiverse, work in progress | 4 comments |
4 Comments so far
josh
If thingverse things like brackets were made in a open source program like heeks cad & the pieces of a multipart piece were made that way. Objects could come together better.
josh
If my design was made in python to create a parametric heeks cad model. Is there a place in thingverse for that code? How about comparing etc.???
My lol-cat calls it purrametric design.
mike mack
keep up the good work on thingiverse i like it allot. i post what i can to it.
samroesch
It would be cool if unchecking “work in progress” put your design on the thingiverse frontpage. Everyone likes getting their work shown off, and having it go to the front page is an incentive to keep working on the design, even after it’s been released into the wild.