The folks over at Slate put together a great feature video about 3D printing featuring MakerBots! Check it out!

Salt and Pepper Hats by DesignGlut

Jen Graves over at The Stranger just wrote about how much she wanted her very own MakerBot.  My favorite line from the article?

The machine itself looks like one of those hook carnival games that you can never win, except with this one you always win.

Check out the full article and find out what Jen would do with her own MakerBot here!

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What’s the old saying? A picture’s worth a thousand words? Sure, but a picture’s only as good as the frame surrounding it. This gorgeous frame designed by red24b is the perfect way to present a picture of your pet, significant other, or your MakerBot.

The frame prints in two parts allowing for two pictures, so why not print in two colors (or more!) and flip the frame depending on your mood? If you’d rather use it for your notes, it also includes a convenient pen / pencil holder. Beautiful work red24b!

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Bezier Heart Bracelet in OpenScad by MakeALot

In this project, MakerBot Operator MakeALot makes excellent use of  WilliamAAdams’ Bezier Heart in OpenSCAD. He redesigned one of his bracelets to include inlay settings to match the hearts model — so you can print the bracelet and hearts in two separate colors, and then fix them afterwards. There are many projects up on Thingiverse that are assemblies of multiple parts, but printing decorative inlays in multiple colors is an under-utilized easy hack for upping the wow factor for your designs.

In my opinion, the above color choices work really well.¹ Most important to pull this off — MakeALot notes that both the hearts and the heart settings are flat-backed. The extra math and geometry he put into the problem goes a long way to make the inlay process quick and clean.

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1. Perhaps Green ABS set in Yellow ABS would be less appealing? I do not like green hearts and bands…. [↩]

Clockwork Library & Printable Clock Script by syvwlch

Thingiverse citizen Pattywac recently organized a team design challenge called “MakerBot United.”  The winning team receives $60.00 from Pattywac plus $100.00 in MakerBot store credit provided by MakerBot Industries!  Without further ado, the results are now in!

First, I’d like to apologize for the delay.  I have been extremely busy lately and kept putting off the judging and announcement…. until now!

There were some great group entries to the design challenge, but the one that seemed to click (tick?) with the community, had the largest working group, and was one of the more complex entries (yet still well designed) was the “Clockwork Library and Printable Clock Script” by syvwlch.  syvwlch collaborated with rustedrobot, barrychuck, and MakerBlock to iterate and improve on the design, making it a great entry for the challenge.  The $66 from me (~$6 from various Flattr donations) will be distributed to the team members via Paypal and the rest will be coordinated through MBI.  Congrats to everyone for the great entries.  I really enjoy seeing the creativity in designs that I hope is at least partially sparked by the design challenges.

Since MakerBlock assists in part of the design challenge process but still wanted to partake, we agreed ahead of time¹ that if he was on the winning team his portion of the winnings would be split amongst the remaining team members.  This means that the $166 total prize pool will be split between syvwlch, rustedrobot, and barrychuck.

It has been really amazing to watch the evolution of the printable clock.  These kinds of cooperative exercises are what open source is about.  Rustedrobot and barrychuck were able to print and test multiple components of the printable clock even as they helped contributed to the improvements of the design.  The amount of dedication from these guys in printing multiple test rigs and revisions is pretty incredible.  And, let’s not forget that Syvwlch has been designing all this time without the benefit of ever getting to use a 3D printer himself – having to completely rely upon his teammates for feedback on the designs!

Congratulations to Syvwlch, rustedrobot, and barrychuck!

1. MakerBlock: In case it matters to anyone, I don’t take part in any of the criteria selection, judging, or decision making process. [↩]

Here’s another oft-overlooked early Thingiverse item: a comb!  You know what I like about this print?  It’s useful.  It’s a useful item that you can download from the internet and make on your own 3d printer, instead of buying an injection-molded one imported from overseas.  Also, I tend to lose combs, so it’s cool to be able to get a new one quickly.

Also, this is a nice, functiona design — hurrah repraprook!  What other toiletries are there already lurking on Thingiverse?  repraprook has a few…and there’s the tube squeezer by starno of course.  Can you find other essentials?  Tooth brushes?  Toilet bowl cleaners?  Vegetable peelers?  Measuring cups?

If you get your design up now, there’s a chance that yours will be the one that future generations 3d print when they need a coaster or coathook…are you up to the challenge?

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