MakerBot Industries

Finally, some enterprising Thingiverse users (Renosis and our own MakerBlock) have recreated a classic toy: wind-up chatterbox teeth.

Note the two-toned effect achieved by switching filament at the right moment.  And look at those teeth — a bit more realistic a bit more so than the classic version of the toy.  Even better, this includes a printable drive mechanism — you only need to supply some nuts & bolts and a spring.  Lazier designers (like me) might have just stolen a mechanism from another toy, but no: they’ve supplied modeled the whole assembly (and provided source files!)

So print it, build it, leave it on your bedstand — just don’t get it mixed up with your dentures!

ChatterBox Teeth - Wind-up by Renosis

This is a Collaboration between MakerBlock and I for the MakerBot United Competition. And we now have a new collaborator syvwlch! If you like it, please click the 'like' button! These are a set of Windup ChatterBox Teeth, like the kind you get in gag stores or the kind "The Joker" always seems to have in "Batman". The two toned teeth are of course achieved by changing the filament at the proper time during the print. The wind-up portion is driven by a clock spring, which you can get from any old wind-up toy (or a wind-up clock, but why would you want to destroy a clock?). I got this particular clock spring from a Dollar Store Easter Toy, you can see the pictures of the Harley Riding Easter Bunny I sacrificed in the instructions. The Drive Mechanism is a Geneva Drive, which is pretty common for a wind-up toy. You wind up the spring and it rotates a cam shaft, opening and closing the teeth. Unfortunately, we could never get the mechanism to work properly. The teeth chatter of course, but the problem here is they chatter too fast and the clock spring expends its energy WAY too fast. We still have a few days left in the competition, so if anyone thinks they have a solution for this and would like to collaborate, speak up now! We have tried every thing we can think of and are at our wits end. We thought gears would produce enough friction to slow the clock spring down, but they don't!

This thing brought to you by

ChatterBox Teeth Gears by MakerBlock

Two gears for use in the ChatterBox Teeth, a collaborative project with Renosis.

This thing brought to you by

SXSW 2011: Flattr w/Thingiverse, Readability, Demotix: Rewarding Creators and Crowdfunding

Yesterday, those of us already participating in Flattr‘s social micropayment/micro-donation service to reward fellow Thingiversians for the awesome things they design or make received an “Important service announcement” from Flattr that may change the future of flattry.

From May 1st we no longer require users to flattr others before they can be flattrd. Or in other words, it’s not mandatory to add money to your account to have an active Flattr button.¹

For those of you new to Flattr, the model in the past has been that you had to “pay”² to get “paid”³. Flattr.com itself describes this change in the announcement and elsewhere as “Opening the Floodgates,” and no doubt this major adjustment will persuade quite a few of the reservedly curious to enjoy the opportunity to receive flattry before showing any.⁴

Speaking of Flattr and Thingiverse, the SXSW 2011 panel discussion “Flattr w/Thingiverse, Readability, Demotix: Rewarding Creators and Crowdfunding” that included Thingiverse.com/MakerBot.com web warrior Marty McGuire has been recently posted as an audio podcast on the panel’s page on the SXSW site (just below the panel description). It is interesting listening, especially when the nitty-gritty of the panel discussion gets underway.

A brief highlight from Marty’s discussion about Thingiverse’s Flattr integration and the future of social micropayment: ”I can imagine a future where that’s how everything is paid for — and that’s fantastic: you ‘get’ based on how great the stuff is that you’ve created.”

The use of Flattr is quite active among Thingiverse users, and the mind-blowing designers, inventions and implementations arriving there each day are waiting for your flattry: their work deserves it.

1. The message also instructs us that the correct past tense of “to flattr” is “flattrd,” which suggests that the correct gerund use would be “Flattrng gets you everywhere.” [↩]
2. i.e. add ”means”/money to your account for flattrng other flattrrs [↩]
3. i.e. have an active, clickable Flattr button for visitors to click to agree to send you a share of their monthly Flattr funds [↩]
4. And then, hopefully, to turn around and transform some of their “revenue” into “means” so that they can experience the joy of giving back. [↩]

In this episode Ethan gives you a worms-eye view of perfecting your build surface, Matt gives you an nifty intro to solid modeling withTinkerCad, and Isaac runs down the latest notables from Thingiverse! Check it out!