MakerBot Industries

In this episode, Ethan prints the Space Shuttle as a multi-colored object, and Matt demos “Party Mode” for your Bots! Robot Hospital! Episode Four!

It looks like the first pictures from Bre’s MakerBot User Group challenge are rolling in!¹²  It’s really great to see people organizing in real life, and not just on message boards.  I don’t often get to geek out with other robot-inclined³ people, so I find it a special treat when I get to talk to other 3D printer operators.

Ace Monster Toys MakerBot User Group!

Is there a MakerBot user group near you?  If not, have you tried starting one?  There’s still time until the March 15 deadline!

1. CCCKC photo by rsaxvc.  The photo says all rights reserved .  I hope you guys don’t mind me posting it here.  If you do, let me know and I’ll take it down even thought it would be a shame. [↩]
2. Ace Monster Toys photo by SeanOsteen, also all rights reserved.  Let me know if you guys want me to take the picture down. [↩]
3. Robot aligned? [↩]

Toilet seat hinge by leros

A toilet seat hinge, even a fully functional precision injection molded one, isn’t sexy – it just serves a purpose.

I like leros’ toilet seat hinge for a lot of reasons.  It reminds me of what it was like to own a 3D printer for the first time.  Window latches, replacement toy parts: I replaced anything I could.

I also like it because replacing something as simple as a broken toilet seat hinge is actually a big deal.  It’s the kind of home repair that is both easy and time consuming all at once.  Once you have the piece of plastic in hand, it’s easy to swap it out.  However, it’s such a small task that it will sit on a honey-do list forever, as it gets eclipsed by more pressing matters.  And yet, it’s really a quality of life issue.  Sitting on a wobbly toilet seat is not a fun experience.

I’m pretty sure it’s also a first of its kind on Thingiverse.  I certainly hope it won’t be the last.  I would love to see a hundred different designs for mundane things like toilet hinges.  Imagine: your toilet seat hinge breaks, so you bust out your smart phone and snap a picture, the five most appropriate designs pop up, and can be sent to your 3D printer. ^1 2 3

So, leros, thank you for uploading the first toilet seat hinge!

Toilet seat hinge by leros

The hinge on my toilet seat broke, so I designed a new one. Its working great. Probably not too exciting for the Thingiverse community, but I wanted to upload it anyway since its my first self-designed 3d print.

This thing brought to you by

1. And it is immediately printed and installed by your robot butler, J33v35. [↩]
2. I’m so leet!!! [↩]
3. Schmarty, how long do you think it would take to write this app? [↩]

Despite many of our best intentions, there just isn’t all that much crossover between printing 3d objects and ripping it up on the guitar.  This is exactly why this object by mirk is so…amazing.

Sure, he could have just printed out a normal nut to fix his Ibanez guitar’s output jack…but why would he do that when he can print out a red, bat-shaped wing nut?  This might not fit on my strat, and it might look a little odd on an ES-175, but it’s sure hard to argue with the logic for this application.

From all of us here at the botcave: rock out a little extra for all of us.

Wing Nut for Guitar Output Jack by mirk

I lost the outer nut for the output jack on my Ibanez RG quite some time ago. I had heard that it takes a while to get spare parts from Ibanez (nothing against Ibanez, I love my guitar) so I had never bothered getting a new one, and had just taken the inner nut and placed it on the outside as a quick fix. I just finished building my ToM 4 days ago so now I had the opportunity to replace the part I had lost. But of course, now that I have full power over the customization, I'm not going to settle for a standard output jack nut. It will be more rocking than any output jack nut ever! So I did a few tests with just cylinders to try to find the right hole size and eventually did, then used this picture crazy-tattoo-designs.com/bat_wing_tattoos.jpg to draw the rest. The normal nut sits inside a groove, so thats why the wings had to be offset.

This thing brought to you by

Flattr w/Thingiverse, Readability, Demotix: Rewarding Creators and Crowdfunding

This coming Saturday morning at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas, MakerBot / Thingiverse Web Warrior Marty McGuire will take part in a panel discussing crowdfunding and micropayments in general, and Flattr in specific.¹

I’ve been enjoying the arrival of Flattr to Thingiverse,² and dream of the day in the not-to-distant future that services like these can help 3D modelers on Thingiverse located anywhere in the world both share their work globally with those who might use it, and receive a healthy influx of cash-love back from those benefitting from their efforts.

If you’re going to be at SXSW Interactive this Saturday at 11am, go check out the Flattr panel, cheer Marty on, and join in some lively discussion about living in the future!

1. This is actually the second time Marty has spoken on behalf of MakerBot / Thingiverse, but the last time was as a Citizen MakerBot Operator at MakerFaire Detroit. This time is for realsies! [↩]
2. A chance to tip folks one month, and then pour my Flattr revenue from the previous month back into tipping the next month’s folks! [↩]