MakerBot Industries

Wow, just one short week after I issued the challenge (or request, really…) sirmakesalot comes through with this amazing print.

Ok, so this doesn’t have a fully-working valve assembly or intake/exhaust manifolds, sure.  But the thingiverse community (sirmakesalot anyway) knocked this one out pretty quickly…and that makes my head dance with ideas about fully-printable, crowd-sourced engine upgrades.  Sure, we can reprogram ECUs, and there are even some intrepid souls out there converting their hybrids to plug-in…but this is really exciting stuff.  Want to bore out your engine?  Just print a new block and some new cylinders.  Taller cruising gear?  Print it out!  I bet there’ll be parametric scripts to generate custom transmissions.  The only question is…who will have them?  Just your mechanic, or will your Tesla econobox come with the source code?

Ok, we can’t run gasoline through these ABS models (yet), but this is amazing work.  Her’s a big tip of the cap to sirmakesalot and his inspiring work.

4 cylinder motor by sirmakesalot

Like my single cylinder motor? Well here is a four cylinder demonstration model. I like to make mechanical things and this was something I wanted to model in 3d. The printable v8 is on the way! It was brought to my attention that the STL files weren't all they could be so I have fixed them, no more Skieinforge errors! I have added a larger set of pistons but it requires really good settings.

This thing brought to you by

Head on over to the MakeProjects site to catch Brian Jepson’s From Kinect to MakerBot guide-in-progress for how to transform captured Kinect data on through to the STLs you need to 3D print with your MakerBot Thing-O-Matic.

His guide picks up where Kyle McDonald’s great 3D Printing with Kinect post leaves off — a great tutorial to take you from the initial STL you create using Kyle’s KinectToSTL tool through to a scaled-down, MakerBot-printable  STL. Bonus points for using only open source tools for the entire chain!

Those looking to learn more about the Open Kinect movement should check out the Open Kinect Project (offers MeetUps in certain cities) and consider attending conferences such as Art && Code 3D: Kinect-Hacking Conference, on October 21-23rd at Carnegie Mellon University.

There have been a few people asking for easier to install binary releases for Kyle’s KinectToSTL tool, compiled also for Windows and Linux. There are some complications that require fuss, not to mention the need to make changes to the code to suit the latest OpenFrameworks release (according to Matt and Kyle). If you accomplish this work, drop a comment back here and we will happily trumpet your triumph to the world.

The awesome folks over at blablabLAB just took their show on the road to Romania, where they continued their “Be Your Own Souvenir” project, this time printing the scans on their brand-new Thing-O-Matics!

Check out the video about their project here.

They sent along a few pictures, and I’m struck by the fact that this looks like a very fun event.  More photos after the jump!

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