MakerBot Industries

Y U NO PICK UP YOUR DIRTY SOCKS?!?

For a meme to “go viral” on the internet has typically meant that a particular idea¹ is rapidly propagated² across the internet.  To stretch the medical metaphor, the vector of infection would be the internet itself – probably through Facebook, Twitter, or even e-mail forwards.

What’s interesting to me is that while this analogy went from the physical world of medicine into the digital world of the internet, 3D printing can allow a digital meme to be rebroadcast across the world of matter.  Look at the existing memes that have already been posted to Thingiverse – the “Y U No Guy,” a creepy bear, and the Nyan cat to name just a few.³  What I particularly liked about fromar’s “Y U NO Guy” comic/meme/print is the way his wife uses the print:

My wife has been leaving this guy on the junk she wants me to pick up to say: Y U NO PICK UP YOUR DIRTY SOCKS?!?

Who would ever thought that the “Y U NO Guy” meme would ever have been spread across a dirty sock vector?

Y U No? Guy by fromar

It's the Internet meme "Y U NO?" Guy.knowyourmeme.com/memes/y-u-no-guy My wife has been leaving this guy on the junk she wants me to pick up to say: Y U NO PICK UP YOUR DIRTY SOCKS?!?

This thing brought to you by

1. Or meme [↩]
2. Repeated and passed on [↩]
3. There’s also my contribution…  I’d really suggest NOT trying it out.  You have been warned. [↩]

MakerBot operator Ed Rodgers had a problem.  He lives close to railroad tracks and the trains made a lot of noise when they rolled passed.  What was his solution?

With some custom printed parts from on Sector67‘s MakerBot 3D printer, an Arduino, and a few other parts, he now has a smart home that will close its windows when a train passes by.  The video above shows off his setup as well as the dramatic reduction in train noises when the windows are closed.

On Thingiverse, we each play a number of roles — modeler, maker, curator, cheerleader, and printer. At World Maker Faire this coming weekend (Sept 17th-18th), the MakerBot booth will be showcase some of our favorite designs from Thingiverse on our display table and printing on the BotFarm. This satisfies the first three categories.¹

So what about great MakerBot Operator masterprints that we all “coo” over on the “Whose Making What” parade?

If you have a print you are particularly proud of and want to donate to us for the Faire, bring it up to our booth and check it in with one of our “RaceWay Pit Crew” staffers. We will place your object on our display table (or within the Raceway set per your request) and tag it with the Thingiverse item number and your name as printer.

Just to make sure, you should upload a snapshot of your print to Thingiverse as an “I Made One” to preserve the memories. While we will keep these items out of the hands of our visitors, the exuberance of visitor’s love for our booth has been known to clear us out.²

Some examples of masterprints that will be on display include TheMakerGuy‘s print of Webca’s 3D Printed Full Sized MakerBot³ and Skimbal‘s & Tbuser‘s prints of some of their own designs.

When we get back from Maker Faire we will unpack our collection of prints and rebuild the MakerBot Workshop Trophy  Case, opposite the recently expanded BotFarm. Your masterprints will be labeled and added to our display!

1. And we are bringing our racing pompomps for the fourth. [↩]
2. Where or where did our brass Stanford bunny go? [↩]
3. His son Elliot, recently on MakerBot.TV, is not afraid to take up our Sword of Omens to defend his dad’s week-long print [↩]

We’ve been working overtime getting our Turtle Shell Racers ready for Maker Faire!  If you didn’t hear the news, we’re going to have a lot of racers running at our booth, and, as you can see in the above slideshow, it’s been a group effort to get everything ready.

Is something like this going on at your home?  If you’ve at home working on your own amazing, 3d-printed racing creation, we are inviting you to bring it to our Maker Faire area and run it around the track for a chance at weekend bragging rights.  Who says track days are only for car nuts?

MakerBot Investor and board member Brad Feld dived into MakerBot in a big way quite recently.¹ As a little pre-World Maker Faire treat he has just put up twenty Custom-Assembled Thing-O-Matics on his deals site Brad Feld’s Amazing Deals.

You know that “yell-and-sell” technique on the late night infomercials where a booming voice intones “Act now, Quantities Extremely Limited”? Well, there’s a ring of truth to this kind of thing: we will not be offering this deal in our store and if the high demand for our staff-built Custom-Assembled bots so far is any guide, these twenty will be sold before the day is out.

So…act now! What are you waiting for! This offer won’t come again! There has never been a better time …! Yup, all quite true: jump to Brad’s site and take advantage of his generosity!

NOTE: The four week lead time for production of the Custom-Assembled Thing-O-Matics still applies!

1. And check out the Foundry coins he made on Thingiverse while getting to know our bots! [↩]