MakerBot Industries

Michael Curry's display at Detroit Maker Faire 2011

It’s little wonder that Michael Curry, of the Cowtown Computer Congress, was the recipient of an Awesome Award at this year’s Detroit Maker Faire for showing off his Mario Cart racing cars (with remotes!), Christmas Lego men, Bathtub U-Boat, and a Portal sentry turret.

Thanks to Jon Speicher for the photo!

Northrop Grumman RQ-4 UAV Drone - (the coolest drone photo I could find!)

Using a 3D printing technique for nylon laser sintering engineers at the University of Southampton designed, printed, and flew a printed unmanned aerial vehicle¹²

No fasteners were used and all equipment was attached using ‘snap fit’ techniques so that the entire aircraft can be put together without tools in minutes.  The electric-powered aircraft, with a 2-metres wingspan, has a top speed of nearly 100 miles per hour, but when in cruise mode is almost silent.

With no need for special tools, tooling skills, equipment and no extra expense or time “penalty” for complex structures, they were able to produce wing structures that would have been extremely expensive and difficult to manufacture in any other way.  This is a truly amazing demonstration of the versatility of 3D printing and snap-fit designs.

Via Slashdot

1. Think drone airplane. [↩]
2. Photo courtesy of gordontour [↩]

This week’s installment of the wackiest weekly webshow about 3d Printing with MakerBots includes a demonstration of one of the Thing-O-Matic’s lesser-known properties, a timelapse of us printing a super-cool comedian, and a reminder from Matt about the new Thingiverse t-shirt.

Going to be in Detroit for MakerFaire this weekend?

Make sure to drop in on software/hardware engineer guru Matt Mets and marketing manager/chief advocate of awesomeness Keith Ozar at the MakerBot Booth!

Matt and Keith will be printing out loads of great models on their mini-BotFarm, with a focus on sharing items created for MakerBot Space Month @ Thingiverse, including Tony Buser’s gorgeous Mars Rover.

They will also be giving a short 20min presentation about the MakerBot Universe that will interest veteran Operators and new audiences alike on the Make:Live stage on Sunday, July 31st @ 3:00pm.

MakerBot Zoetrope

Matt Mets will be bringing his brand new MakerBot Zoetrope project, DIY  turntable + light-strobe rig designed for zoetrope animations using objects printing on a MakerBot. Should the delicate models survive, look to see the Blender experimentation I have been doing for Matt, printing out poses of Big Buck Bunny from the open source blender files for that character!

Matt will be printing other animations (he’d really like a Nyan Cat if the Thingiverse modelers are listening) and experiments all weekend.

Here are the MakerFaire Detroit event details

Detroit, July 30 & 31
The Henry Ford
Saturday 9:30am – 6pm • Sunday 9:30am – 6pm

See things before they are Things!

Last year MakerFaire Detroit distinguished itself as a particularly fertile place for Hackerspace project launches and the truly cutting edge. A great place for innovators to get audiences revving before the monster audiences arriving to the East Coast for World MakerFaire NYC. So if you can make it there, you won’t be disappointed.

Pew pew!

I’ve been working on a printable open source snap-together disc shooter for a long time now.  I think it’s time I brought in some help.    I’ve decided on my own Thingiverse challenge.  The chosen design will receive $50.00 from me via PayPal.  Here’s the low down:

Rules:

• Design a printable, multiple capacity disc shooter that uses printed plastic, rubber bands, and, if you wish, up to one metal spring from a Pez dispenser
• The discs should be 19mm in diameter and 2mm in thickness
• The disc shooter should be tensioned by the trigger, rather than having to cock the shooter for each disc
• Needs to be printable on a MakerBot Cupcake CNC or Thing-O-Matic
• Needs to be posted to Thingiverse with an open license by 11:59PM on August 31
• Tag your Thing with the word “pewpew”
• Multiple entries allowed, so go wild

The entries will be judged using the following criteria:

• Number of Likes on Thingiverse
• Number of times it has been made by someone else (so post your ideas early!)
• Printability (not just fitting it in the space but also how many separate prints are required)
• Effort put into documentation and design (based on testing and revisions)
• Bonus points for:
• A snap-together design
• Parametric design in OpenSCAD
• Use of a removable magazine for holding discs
• Easy-to-pull trigger
• Uploading STL’s for printing plates

If you need some inspiration here are some links:

• Details on commercial varieties
• Disc shooter on Thingiverse cicra 11/28/10
• Disc shooter on Thingiverse circa 12/5/10
• Disc shooter on Thingiverse circa 7/3/11
• Snap-together pin connectors by Tony Buser
• Snap-together Mars rover by Tony Buser
• Snap-together 27-to-1 ratio gears by Mraiser
• Snap-together Truckbot by Mraiser
• Snap-together Tank v2 by Mraiser
• Ideas for improvements on the open source disc shooter
• Sublime’s pencil gun on Thingiverse
• Vik’s foam dart gun on Thingiverse
• Bongoboy23′s disc shooter on Thingiverse

Good luck!  I can’t wait to have a big pile of multi-colored disc shooters!

Also, squirrels in space.

The thing about this Thingiverse item is that the whole 1980s cartoon aspect (Thundercats, no less) actually detracts from the fact that this is a life-sized 3d-printable sword.  Yes, that’s right: I said a life-sized 3d-printable sword.

That’s pretty epic, and we all need to tip our caps to cyclone for his imagination and dedication.  Well done, and I suspect that this may not be the last of its type.  I’m sure that there will be a number of dirks, daggers, katanas, and shivs before we know it.  But will any of them be better than this charmer?  The gauntlet has been thrown.

And be careful out there, folks: it’s all fun and games until somebody puts an eye out, as my grandmother might say.

Life-Sized Sword of Omens by cyclone

I decided to make a version of the sword from the 80's cartoon. As an exercise for using sketchup and for a present for a friend's birthday. Just in time for the impending "event" (T-cats reboot), this Friday. I spent a lot of time on the model. I started with a few models from 3dwarehouse. None were very good for printing, or scaled well for actually holding. All of them relied on textures for details that wouldn't show up after printing. Initially the model came out too small. Then it didn't fit the hand well. Once it was sized and shaped correctly I had to work out how it could be chopped up to fit my build envelope. The latest version has location holes to help line up parts and glue together. It seems that the blade has benefited greatly from the interior channel. Even without the filament the blade is stronger. I'm working on another version with an insert for the eye and an insertion slot for the blade. So that the whole sword can be printed by colors: grip, blade, eye, jewel. Finished sword is about 45 inches (1145mm) from pommel to tip. Oh and time for print @ 30mm/s min layer time of 20 secs: 6x blade pieces 5 hours blade tip 1.75 hours (cool min layer makes it take a long time) eye holder 2.5 hours 2x grip pieces 2.75 hours pommel pieces 2 hours total about 14 hours Please let me know if there are any issues. I'm aware that looking through the hilt only gives you the "Sight of Regular Seeing." Working on that. ------------------ Update V2: Added an update eye holder piece, with an insertion hole for the blade, the blade can be printed (in an optional extra color) and sanded/cleaned/finished then inserted into the holder. The insertion point's clearance hasn't been tested, but should be close. Might need sanding cleaning for the blade to fit. Also the new holder has inserts for the eye and cat emblem, which can be printed in two colors using the whole pause and swap method when it first starts printing the upper portion. This is also not printed yet but should be good. I'll print these and repport back later today. So for this, obviously instead of eye-holder.stl you'd use eye-holderV2 and the inserts. One of each or two of the same one. Switching to work in progress. ------------------ Update V3: Found a small geometry problem in the eye holder as well as the fact that the thin ring (around the eye/cat image) was too thin to print nicely so changes to the inserts as well. Apologies if this print is too tall, I looked up the build envelope for a stock cupcake and fixed the model to stay under the published height of 130mm but if you have trouble with that use the V3 eye holder and the new shorter blade pieces. Removed the original eye holder to reduce confusion. Any combined print can be exported from the sketchup. ------------------ Update V4: Added the center channel for using threaded rod or double ended threaded studs. The hole is a 3mm and can be drilled out to a larger dim if need be. I've left the other registration holes for those that prefer to use that. Also reversed the extrusion on the cat-insert to get around skeinforge's refusal to fill thin features. Prints *much* nicer. If you've already printed one, this one is a big improvement (see photo).

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We recently had the honor of scanning the amazing Laurie Anderson.  If you’re not familiar with her work, it’s mesmerizing stuff and you should really run out and get a few copies of her newest album, Homeland, as well as her 1982 classic Big Science.

Laurie is also a long-time maker; she’s made a number of experimental musical instruments over the years, including the famous tape-bow violin. Her work has always pushed the limits of technology, especially when it comes to manipulating the human voice, something she’s mastered to great dramatic effect.

It’s a real honor to host her likeness on Thingiverse; I plan to print out her bust and set it right next to my audio workstation as a source of inspiration.  I suspect I won’t be the only one to do so.

Laurie Anderson by Friends

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_anderson

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Karakuri is the ancient Japanese practice of creating incredibly intricate automata using weights, pulleys, and wires.  The video above features some of these robots rowing boats, shooting arrows, turning somersaults, and practicing calligraphy.  Think back to the amusement park rides of the 1960′s – with the exception of a recorded song, those little robots were also completely operated by weights, pulleys, and wires too.

The amazing thing about 3D printing is it enables everyone to create works every bit as intricate and complicated as these little robots.  Now anyone can focus on purpose and design rather than technique.  If a handcrafted robot can select an arrow, draw it back on a bowstring, and fire accurately at a target – there’s no reason you couldn’t do the same thing using 3D printed plastic parts too.  The real question isn’t whether we could reproduce these kinds of actions using 3D printed parts, but rather what could we create with printed parts that would have been difficult or even impossible using these ancient means?

Via Make

CUBE -The 3D printed 3D printer by Webca

Thingiverse champion Webca has done it again.  First he printed an entire Cupcake CNC on his Cupcake CNC.  Now, he’s used that printed printer to print another printer.  His creation has a much larger build area, linear bearings, custom heated build platform, used more than 15 pounds of plastic, cost around $3,000.00 (which I’m sure does not include his time) and eight months of printing.  Webca suggests this might be the largest multi-print to date.  He’s got me convinced.

Here’s a video of it in action:

The raw materials have been there for some time, but,  until now, no one has put them together to create an Octocat!

Listen folks — we love GitHub.  We do.  We have some repositories where we store files and such, and it’s awesome.  But we’re still not sure if it really lives up to its mascot; that’s a high bar to set for yourself, folks.  And I think that BrianEnigma just pushed it a bit higher with this mashup.

But seriously — cheers to GitHub for having such a cool service and mascot, and to BrianEnigma and all of our Thingiverse thing-mashers for all their great work.

Octocat by BrianEnigma

Octocat is watching you check in your source code. Based on the popularity of the octopus model here on Thingiverse and the popularity of GitHub among programmers, I figured I would try making a creepy version of GitHub's octocat. This model is a frankenstein mashup between Bucket o' Octopi thingiverse.com/thing:7900 and The Cat thingiverse.com/thing:1283 Change Log: Version 2 of this model is the latest and fixes the flat areas found in version 1. Version 1 of this model has a couple of flat areas in the cat's head. This is entirely due to my Blender skills and a big mistake that occurred early in the process, but wasn't caught until late. It's not noticeable at MakerBot resolutions, but if you were to print this on a fancy professional printer, I'd wait until the next version. There's also a minor problem with the cat's chin being just a bit too much of an overhang for a MakerBot to handle perfectly, but it still looks good after you cut away some of the slop/drool.

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