MakerBot Industries

Booyah!

Congratulations to br3ttb who crushed the Inverse Turner’s Cube challenge within about an hour of the post going up. ¹  Also, congratulations are in order to Whosawhatsis for posting the most elegant OpenSCAD solution using the least amount of code.  They are each the recipient of 9000 internet points, bragging rights, and OpenSCAD kudos.

Given that these guys just smashed that challenge almost immediately, I feel compelled to post another challenge.

I want to roll 20′s.

1. Create a regular icosahedron, a 20-sided polyhedron, with the number 20 on each side.
2. Upload your STL and OpenSCAD design file to Thingiverse
3. Tag your design with “iroll20s“

As always, the totally imaginary and elusive prizes shall be awarded to (1) the first to upload and (2) the person who upload with the fewest lines of code. ²

first? by br3ttb

tried to bang this out as quickly as possible to win 9000 internet points ( makerbot.com/blog/2011/09/29/openscad-puzzle-challenge-how-would-you-make-this/) openscad's modular nature made this challenge pretty easy. make one shpere with 3 square through-holes, then repeat 3 times with a different radius.

This thing brought to you by

1. Photo courtesy of Camera John [↩]
2. You’re not going to let these two guys win twice in one day, are you? [↩]

Inverse Turners Cube by msruggles

A Turner’s Cube is an object that is essentially an exercise for budding machinists.  After being shown a Turner’s Cube – but not how it was created, the apprentice is to figure out how to recreate it.  The above image is from msruggles’ Inverse Turners Cube.  This got me thinking…  Could it be made in OpenSCAD?  Could I make it?  And, could you?

If you’ve been following along with our OpenSCAD tutorial series, I think you’ve got the design chops to make your own Inverse Turner’s Cube.  So, how’s about a friendly little challenge?

1. Download just the STL from msruggles’ Inverse Turners Cube
2. Re-create an Inverse Turner’s Cube using just OpenSCAD
3. Upload your STL and OpenSCAD design file to Thingiverse
4. Tag your design with “inverseturnerschallenge“

Mad bragging rights, OpenSCAD kudos, and 9000 internet points to the first person to upload the OopenSCAD file and STL for a recreated Inverse Turner’s Cube and the person who can recreate the Inverse Turner’s Cube using the least amount of code. (Except comments, of course!)¹

Inverse Turners Cube by msruggles

A turners cube is a great way to test your skills on a lathe, mill or even a drill press if you've got a few screws loose upstairs. This one will test your skills on a 3D printer. This is a complete opposite of the classic turners cube with the rounds on the outside and the squares on the inside. 100mm OD. As always, super bonus points if you print this out and post the pictures. Twisted version for those who are feeling especially brave.

This thing brought to you by

1. There’s no money or fungible prizes on this one, just warm fuzzies and fleeting accolades [↩]

ReplicatorG 0026, Firmware 3.0 and Tigers, Oh My! Ok, ok. I admit, tigers may be a bit of exaggeration. ReplicatorG 0026 and Firmware 3.0 are now available for all users, in a handy download package, or directly from our source code repositories. This includes a lot of updates, better GCode profiles for the new Mk7 Steptsruders®, and a plethora of bug fixes.

What new about ReplicatorG 0026 ?

Most importantly, ReplicatorG has been updated to include an Stepstruder® Mk7 profile. This makes it easy to get excellent prints out of a Mk7. The Mk7 specific profile means filament control has been optimized for cleaner, better prints overall. And along the way a lot of bugfixes have made it into ReplicatorG, including better panels, updated commands, and easier logging.

What’s new about Firmware 3.0?

The Firmware 3.0 codebase has been cleaned up and extended to support multiple extruders. The firmware is more stable, and power users can more easily build and test variations of it. As always you can upgrade your firmware from Machine | Upload new firmware… in ReplicatorG.

Unfortunately, we had to change some of the core firmware to do that. That means you need to update Extruder Controller (to 3.0) Motherboard (to 3.0) and ReplicatorG (to 0026) together when you upgrade.

What else do I need to know?

Firmware 3.0 requires ReplicatorG 0026 to run.  Also, we’ve renamed a number of machine drivers for clarity, so you’ll probably need to re-select your driver in the Machine menu when you first start up.

Firmware 3.0 Support:

As always, we love to watch and help Makerbot users to upgrade, tweak, and innovate. Unfortunately, we can’t support every single variation of bot out in the wild.
Makerbot pledges full support for ReplicatorG 0026 and Firmware 3.0 on our most popular bot configurations:

• Gen3 Electronics (Cupcake) with Mk5 Plastruder
• Gen4 Electronics (Thing-o-Matic) with Mk5 Plastruder
• Gen4 Electronics (Thing-o-Matic) with Mk6 or Mk7 Stepstruder®

If you are using some other configuration, we’ll do our best to help, but we cannot promise that we can solve your problems.  Tread carefully before updating your firmware to 3.0 if you’re running a custom configuration!

Thanks to all-star developers Adam Meyer, Matt Metts, Koen Kooi, Noah Levy, Marius (and new MakerBot developer Far McKon! -ed.)  for their hard work and great code.

Klein Bottle / Mobius Vase by RotoScan

People learn in a lot of different ways.  One of the most common is by doing.  Take programming for instance.  The first lesson in just about any programming language is essentially the same – how to display the phrase “Hello World.”  Even if the result is not unique, the experience is.  Some of the coolest programming and design tricks I’ve ever learned have been from looking into someone else’s designs and replicating their work.

The above is not the first Klein bottle uploaded to Thingiverse.  In fact, kelsorj, the first Klein bottle uploader, actually pointed out that there are many variations on this theme.

“The Klein Bottle is a bit like a mobius strip but without the edge. There are many flavors that a bottle can take so this model is only one of many representations that can be imagined.”

Not only was the design of the bottle useful as an exercise for the designer, but it adds to the  “flavors” of a Klein bottle that can be downloaded from Thingiverse.  Even though Thingiverse already had one or two Klein bottles, it is a richer place for having a third.

So!  If you’ve noticed a design pop up on Thingiverse, why not try to duplicate it and share your findings for everyone else to see and learn from?  And, if you’ve got a design sitting on your hard drive, don’t be discouraged from sharing it just because there’s a variation already on Thingiverse.  Who knows what we could learn from it?!¹

Klein Bottle / Mobius Vase by RotoScan

This is a Klein Bottle.

This thing brought to you by

1. Also, how meta was the title? [↩]