MakerBot Industries

Are you a teacher or educator interested in bringing a MakerBot into the classroom? Did you miss last month’s introductory workshop? During this 4 hour session you will be introduced to 3-D printing with the MakerBot Thing-o-Matic. We’ll walk you step-by-step through the process of creating a 3-D computer model and preparing it for printing with the MakerBot. You will be given an overview of various 3-D modelling software tools that are available for free online. In addition, you will be shown a set of lesson plans that you can use with your students over the course of a semester. No prior knowledge of 3-D modelling or 3-D printing is required. Please bring a laptop computer to the workshop.

When: Saturday, September 10th, 2011, 10AM – 2PM
Where: Bot Farm, 314 Dean Street, Brooklyn
Cost: Free! (You must also email a brief statement describing your work with young people).

Only 15 slots are available, so sign up as soon as possible! You can register
via Eventbrite.

How do you take an already-amazing animatronic hand, and make it even cooler?  You 3D Print it!

For the past year, Easton L has been developing his concept for an animatronic hand capable of being controlled by a flex-sensor equipped glove.  For his latest prototype, Easton created a derivative work of a 3D printable hand already available on thingiverse, and constructed a forearm using fiberglass.  Since  I had been lending Easton advice on the project for some time anyways, and he was unable to get access to a 3D printer, I volunteered to “makerbot” the components for the hand and send them to him.  The result is seriously impressive, and it works exactly as you would expect – Flex your finger, and the corresponding finger responds on the hand.  It’s strong enough to pickup full cans, and versatile enough to pick up tennis balls and other unusually shaped objects.

His work is so impressive, in fact, that Easton has been featured in the September issue of Popular Mechanics Magazine (check out their post about him online).  This project is totally open source, so download the cad files from thingiverse, and the source from my site.

Robotic Hand by njkl44

This is a modified version of a robotic hand that armjunkie made.

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South America map puzzle by chapulina

This tutorial on how to create a 3D printable map puzzle by Chapulina is far too awesome to be relegated to a simple footnote.  Chapulina uses a combination of open source resources and programs to achieve this final result, including maps from Wikipedia, the vector drawing and image manipulation tools from Inkscape, and the DXF support of OpenSCAD to create these cool 3D printable puzzles.

Chapulina’s title of their blog post and tutorial was far more generic than simply “creating 3D printable map-puzzles,” as well it should have been.  This same exact methodology could be used to create a 3D printable¹ puzzle out of any image.

What will you do with this new found knowledge?

online maps, inkscape,openscad dxf

1. Or lasercuttable! [↩]

With projects like the MakerBot Zoetrope animation appearing at the Detroit Maker Faire and a few 3D artists jumping feet first into the world of modeling for 3D printing, the 3D graphics and animation world now recognizes the value to a digital artist offered by a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic on a designer’s desk.

Check out this great article in the latest issue of 3D Artist Magazine from the UK, introducing MakerBot and Thingiverse to their community. (And we encourage you to check out other great 3D modeling, painting, lighting, and rigging articles in the rest of the magazine!) MakerBot looks forward to more cross-pollination between DIY fabbers and those who have until now have worked exclusively in the digital realm.

Welcome to the physical world, friends! We can’t wait to print out your Yodas and Octopi and anything else you dream up to share with us on Thingiverse!

Edit: Please note, the group photograph in the bottom left of the page above was taken by Richard Allen and appears in our blog with his kind permission. David Neff, our general manager who is also a professional photographer, is responsible for the other MakerBot-related images.  We apologize for the confusion.

To continue our disaster theme: MakerBotters (and Makers in general) are a hardy bunch — or at least we like to think we are.  We had a potential major challenge this last weekend in Hurricane Irene.

Though the gigantic hurricane is now dispersed, it did hit New York City directly, and its storm surge pushed water onto land in Battery Park as well as Red Hook — not all that far from the Botcave.  It even led to the cancellation of the Afro-Punk Festival, a real shame in light of its stellar lineup.

Luckily we pushed through and New York got off much easier than feared, though the clean-up continues in many locations.  We’re back to normal here, and, thanks to MacStruder, we can now print a tiny, harmless version of the hurricane we just weathered.

I for one much prefer hurricanes this size.

Hurricane Irene by Macstruder

A surface map of Irene using source data from NOAA GOAS East IR data, August 27th. Rendered with OpenSCAD and simplified a bit with meshlab.

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Thanks to Tony Buser who caught a glimpse of a familiar friend in the trailer for the brand new Sundance Channel series “Quirky”.¹ The show focuses on two new “citizen designers” each week — home grown inventors and designers from Quirky’s online community – who show up with a dream for product and then work with the Quirky team to realize a prototype. Catch the show to experience the entire process of taking a product from sketch to thing within a dramatically orchestrated, time-compressed window.

Ah, TV about innovation — what more could the MakerBot community want? We love in particular that Ben Kaufman, the founder of Quirky, is introduced standing next to a printing MakerBot Thing-O-Matic. Why not? We always do our best to stand next to a MakerBot when we want to draw in the crowds as well.²

1. Tony caught the show and confirmed that the Thing-O-Matic is in the series as well. [↩]
2. Great arm candy for your local Maker Faire or tech expo. [↩]

Africa map puzzle by chapulina

Thingiverse user Chapulina has embarked upon an ambitious plan.  They are going to print the world. ¹  So far Chapulina has re-created South America, Central America, and Africa.  Here’s what Chapulina has to say:

I’ve wanted a map puzzle for as long as I can remember. But all I could find were jigsaw puzzles with maps drawn on them, instead of the map-shaped pieces I wanted. Now that I have a 3D printer I can design my own puzzle of the artificial borders which humans put between themselves!

These designs combine the best parts of maps and puzzles into something that is much more awesome than either one would be alone.  Plus, if something causes boundaries to shift, no need to buy a whole new puzzle or scrap your atlas – just print up a few new countries and you’re as good as new.

South America map puzzle by chapulina

I've wanted a map puzzle for as long as I can remember. But all I could find were jigsaw puzzles with maps drawn on them, instead of the map-shaped pieces I wanted. Now that I have a 3D printer I can design my own puzzle of the artificial borders which humans put between themselves!Central Americathingiverse.com/thing:11112Africathingiverse.com/thing:11159Europethingiverse.com/thing:112163D printable puzzle tutorialmyshumi.posterous.com/3d-printable-puzzle-tutorial More info and pictures here: myshumi.posterous.com/map-puzzle

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Central America map puzzle (with tutorial) by chapulina

Continuing my project of printing puzzle maps of all countries on Earth, this time I printed Central America. I chose it for having few pieces, so I could quickly test the new method I came up with. I prepared a tutorial explaining how I made the puzzle in case someone wants to design their own. Here it is:myshumi.posterous.com/3d-printable-puzzle-tutorial Suggestions are appreciated ^^South Americathingiverse.com/thing:11084Africathingiverse.com/thing:11159Europethingiverse.com/thing:11216

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Africa map puzzle by chapulina

More man made borders for you to play with!South Americathingiverse.com/thing:11084Central Americathingiverse.com/thing:11112Europethingiverse.com/thing:112163D printable puzzle tutorialmyshumi.posterous.com/3d-printable-puzzle-tutorial More info and pictures here: myshumi.posterous.com/map-puzzle

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1. If you are a long time reader, you may recall an essay published on this blog of the name “Print the World“ [↩]