MakerBot Industries

Tonight at 9pm EST sharp (6pm PST) on Make: Live, hosts Becky Stern and Matt Richardson will direct their attention to the world of DIY 3D printing.

This short 30-40min episode will feature lots for the MakerBot world to love! Catch segments with MakerBot staff such as an interview with CEO Bre Pettis, a Tinkercad demo by hacker/educator Liz Arum, and a teardown of the Turtle Shell Racers from the MakerBot Raceway at World Maker Faire 2011 with modeler/maker Michael Curry !

Becky Stern by Friends

sternlab.org/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becky_Stern - Part of a ongoing project scanning the heads of bloggers, artists, DIYers, makers, musicians, hackers and anybody else we think is notable. Made with a Polhemus 3d scanner at MakerBot.

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Matt Richardson by Friends

mattrichardson.com/

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Polhemus Scan of Bre Pettis by bre

We'll be scanning a tv personality next week and so we are renting a Polhemus high end laser scanner. We needed to test it out. Bre Pettis: Scanner Guinea Pig.

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Above is just a quick screenshot of some of the latest robot mascots to roll in to the GrabCAD challenge. With over 75 entries so far — and enough correspondence suggesting another thirty or so robots soon to debut — the competition is no longer just heating up, it is passing through a state change.

If you are still putting the final touches on your entry, make sure to check the entry deadline time and requirements carefully. With this many incredible entries, there is no chance GrabCAD will be extending the deadline. And it would be a terrible tragedy for this entry window to close with your (robotic) baby tapping its fore-limb against the porthole of the GrabCAD MakerBot Challenge airship.

Captain Nemo!  We’ve got a stowaway aboard!   What shall we do with him, sir?

Hmm…actually that’s the wrong Nautilus, isn’t it?  This one is a model of the namesake for the Jules Verne vessel, a cephalopod with a chambered shell that allows it to float underwater and move using jet propulsion — a living submarine.  Its chambered shell is also a beautiful logarithmic spiral, a fascinating geometric phenomenon which occurs in many places throughout nature from romanesco cauliflower to hurricanes.

This nautilus shell is a classic form and we’re glad to have it on Thingiverse — well done once again, tc_fea!

Nautilus Shell by tc_fea

This is a nautilus shell split in half. I have included two .stl's, one is 1 mm thick walls and the other is 1.5 mm thick walls. I liked the 1 mm thick version but it did not print well on my cupcake with an MK5, maybe those with newer printers can print it cleanly. The 1.5 mm thick version is shown in the top photo & last photo and printed much better on my setup.

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In the spring of 2010, Shapeways got a Cupcake CNC MakerBot with a MK4 extruder. The cupcake is an amazing machine that got 3000 people started in 3D printing, but the MakerBot MK4 Plastruder’s strong point was not printing small things like bunny ears. Shapeways printed out the Bowie Bunny by Rob Parthoens , which is one of their favorite prints and something that they use to compare machine types. It is a small model and stands about an inch tall from tip of the toes to top of the ears. As you can see in the image above, the MakerBot MK4 print of July 2010 left something to be desired.

At MakerBot, we live by the open source saying, “Release early and often!” and so we’ve been hard at work improving the technology since then. Fast forward a little more than a year and we’ve gone through the MK5, the MK6 and have just launched the MakerBot MK7 Plastruder. Look how much the MakerBot print has improved!

A few things that I noticed:

- When Shapeways printed the Bowie Bunny on their Cupcake CNC in 2010 the MK4 DC motor extruder had difficulty with the ears.  Back then printing tall thin parts on a Cupcake CNC required extremely careful calibration of a lot of arcane settings.  The Shapeways grey robust print from July of 2010 on their industrial commercial printer is clearly the superior print.

- In September 2011 the MakerBot print from a Thing-O-Matic with Generation 4 electronics and a MK7 stepper extruder with a 0.4mm nozzle was able to print Bowie Bunny at a layer height of 0.2mm – with stock settings right out of the box!  When shown side-by-side, the print from the Thing-O-Matic is comparable to the Shapeways commercial printer result.

- While there’s still a little ways to go to improving small features like the areas around the bunny’s ears, we’re looking forward to continuing to improve and develop our software so you can get professional quality results from your DIY printer right in your own home.

The difference from before is remarkable and I’m very proud of how far we’ve come in about a year! Thank you to everyone who has used a MakerBot and helped push it forward. We couldn’t have done this without the contributions of many people both internally who work at MakerBot and every MakerBot Operator in the community that’s given us support, feedback, or jumped in and been innovative. The future is bright. Full speed ahead!