MakerBot Industries

Spaceships have landed at the GE Air Show.

Share what you want to build. Type it out, draw a sketch, or take a photo, and post it in the comments at www.facebook.com/GE or email hello.social@ge.com.

Also, check out a few of the other non-flying objects they have been adding to their Thingiverse page.

(Though we are pretty sure these might fly if you set your mind to the task.)

French Bulldog by GE

A model of a French Bulldog. A request from the GE's Air Show, all about non-flying things! Idea submitted by Jean M. to the GE Air Show at Facebook.com/GE

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Pickup Truck by GE

A lifted Pickup Truck, with super chunky off-road tires! A request from week 2 of the GE airshow, all about non-flying things. Idea submitted by Ethan G. to the GE Air Show at Facebook.com/GE

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A Kayak by GE

Just a simple Kayak. A request from week 2 of GE's Air Show, all about non-flying things. Idea submitted by Braeden N. to the GE Air Show at Facebook.com/GE

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MakerBot’s Tony Buser has been doing quite a few experiments with mashing up the heads we have been 3D scanning lately. He put Bre’s head on the Statue of Liberty, Stephen Colbert’s head on a Teddy Bear, and made a classic statue bust and plinth of his own 3D scan. Well, this line of investigations has lead finally to the inevitable, the highest form of statuary … bobbleheads!

Now, “bobbleheads” (also bobbing head dolls, nodders, wobbler, dashboard nodders, and “those things you get at baseball games sometimes”) have been a quest for MakerBot Operators for a while now — one actually calling up to ask what the “bobblehead setting” was for ReplicatorG.¹ Well, Tony didn’t stop his work at producing one bobblehead, he created parametric tools to help all of us make the bobbleheads we have been dreaming of!

Check out his detailed step-by-step instructions for how to use his negative object or “nega-thing” to punch the bobblehead cavity and spring mount into the base of your own head model! Or a hero’s head model. Or an enemy.

He includes a great “*sta”² base — and you can use his tools to design and share your own base as well. Tony has observed that mounting bobblehead on the turning spool works pretty well.  Bonus points to the first MakerBot Operator to artfully integrate a bobblehead into beatbot’s Spazzi! (Perhaps next to Isaac’s Sign of the Horns?)

Bobblehead *Sta by tbuser

The infamous Gangsta super sized and ready to accept infinite variations of mashups with mildly amusing bobbing heads. Uses Pin Connectors V2 thingiverse.com/thing:10541 to assemble the sections together. Nameplate uses OpenSCAD Bitmap Fonts Module thingiverse.com/thing:2054 Wibbly-wobbly-bobbly head action: youtube.com/watch?v=ctFl9GKmiiE

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Brebble Head by tbuser

Bre's head with the bobblehead mount underneath. Using Polhemus Scan of Bre Pettis thingiverse.com/thing:9010

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1. True story. [↩]
2. ie the classic Gangsta mashup model [↩]

The humble maple seed

A few days ago @mostley aka Sven H. suggested another design challenge – designing a “maple leaf copter.” ¹  For those of you who haven’t seen one, a maple seed has a long thin wing-like structure.  As the seeds fall, they spin rapidly.  The better the particular seed is balanced, the slower it falls and the faster it spins.  While there are some artificial models, such as this origami version, a 3D printable version would make an incredible quick-printing demonstration piece and all-around super cool toy.  Some of these links, especially this discussion forum with pictures and diagrams or perhaps a review of the origami model, might help you design your own.

So, to everyone who reads this blog…  I hereby challenge you to a “maple seed copter” design race.  All you have to do is design and upload a printable maple seed-inspired copter to Thingiverse and tag it with “mapleseed.”  There’s no prize money on this one, just bragging rights, so it’s open to everyone, enter as many times as you like, and make something awesome!  The winning design, determined by the number of likes + comments, will be announced Monday morning on the blog.  Good luck!

(Although, if are motivated by money, the $50.00 prize for the disc shooter challenge is still up for grabs!)

1. Photo courtesy of Armand Agasi [↩]

The title says it all. Or does it.

A father/daughter project of assembling a Thing-O-Matic didn’t stop when the last nut was bolted into place. A paint job was in order, but that meant the famed MakerBot logo had to go…temporarily of course. Instead of merely repainting the logo, Tinkerer and his daughter took it upon themselves to take that logo and render it in three dimensions, and then paint it.

What really gets me is this line in the description: “I created a 3D text of the MakerBot name/logo that you can print out to add bling to your printer.” Make sure to take a look at Tinkerer’s bot – it’s smokin’ hot.

MakerBot 3D Text Logo by Tinkerer

I created a 3D text of the MakerBot name/logo that you can print out to add bling to your printer or maybe blend into other objects like key chains or what have you. I created this in Solidworks (because that is what I know) so I attached the native part file in addition to the STL file. My daughter and I finished building our Makerbot Thing-O-Matic last week and we decided to paint it red on the outside and white on the inside. This obliterated the nice logo's that Makerbot prints on the wood, so that is what we decided to create this 3D printed logo to attach onto the front of the bot.

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And the bar is raised once again, thanks to sirmakesalot.  This one takes two full Thing-O-Matic beds to create its parts, but, just like a real V-8, it’s obviously worth it.  Just look at it — after this, how can you go back to an inline-4, with its unbalanced vibrations and ridiculous whining?

I foresee a whole new generation of gearheads using this print to explain to their significant others why a Challenger is a better car than a Corolla.  Now if there were only a print to help explain turbochargers…

But seriously, folks — sirmakesalot has really done some amazing things here with his motor series.  Thingiverse has a lot of amazingly productive modelers, and even among them, he’s a star.  Thanks for making  Thingiverse extra awesome!

Printable V8 motor by sirmakesalot

Here is a motor with a v8 configuration. It is two halves mounted ninety degrees from each other with the same crank shaft, connectors and pistons as the four cylinder just more of them. It is worth noting that they can be alternatively mounted flat or opposing piston configuration. I opted for the muscle of the V8! I have added the crank shaft parts layout and the source file as separate files so if any parts brake, you don't have to print the whole thing again! UPDATE: I have uploaded the fixed STL files, no more errors from Skeinforge! Thank you all for your valuable input as I am still learning too. I have added a larger piston file but it requires good printer settings.

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