MakerBot Industries

Are you a teacher or educator interested in bringing a MakerBot into the classroom? 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 modeling 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 modeling or 3-D printing is required. Please bring a laptop computer to the workshop.

When: Saturday, October 29th, 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).

You can register via Eventbrite.

MakerBot’s Marketing Department is looking for an awesome intern to help spread the word about MakerBot through publicity, social media, events, and more!

Incentives:

• Small stipend
• Latest MakerBot Thing-O-Matic at the conclusion of internship
• Being involved in a cool, up and coming start ups!

Responsibilities:

• Writing entries for MakerBot blog
• Maintaining MakerBot Facebook page
• Coordinating Twitter campaigns
• Planning and attending various events
• Organizing database of contacts
• Assisting in writing and sending MakerBot newsletter
• Maintaining press clips – cataloging and scanning media coverage
• Researching to find new media outlets that would potentially cover MakerBot
• Helping marketing team find like-minded partners for collaborations and co-branding

Experience:

• Interest in marketing, social media and/or public relations – students working towards are related degree preferred, but open to all
• Solid writing skills
• Knowledge of current media outlets (print, TV, online) 

To apply:

Send a resume and short description of why you’d be a good fit for the internship to Stef Shapira – stef@makerbot.com

I’m looking for someone to hire as an executive assistant to provide seamless administrative support. Successful candidate will be responsible for managing Executive calendars, relationships and correspondence, for which s/he will be the first point of contact. This will require the Assistant to develop a deep understanding of the Business to establish priority based on the level of importance.

Key results expected: effective calendar management, well managed travel arrangements, timely & thorough preparation of expense reports, optimum screening of incoming communications and routing for action and follow-up; communication with both internal and external contacts including significant prospect and client relationships; well proofed standard correspondence; optimum logistical arrangements for official travel and management of expense reports; comprehensive organization of meetings, luncheons, interviews as needed; establish effective working relationships with colleagues and external contacts and may be required to provide flexible support to other Managers as required.

Job Requirements:

• 3-5 years executive/administrative assistant experience; financial services preferred.
• Proven ability to work well in and contribute to a team environment.
• Excellent organization and communication skills.
• Shows tact, discretion, confidentiality and good judgment in handling sensitive and confidential matters and documentation.
• Demonstrates ability to prioritize and manage multiple assignments in a fast-paced environment to meet deadlines with efficiency and accuracy.
• Has excellent attention to detail, and executes responsibilities with a sense of urgency and follow-through.
• Candidate must be flexible and adaptable to rapid changes in the daily work environment and be resourceful in solving problems.
• Able to act in a project management capacity.
• Excellent computer skills and writing skills.
• Have proficiency in or willingness to learn company applications.

To apply send a cover letter and resume to helpbre@makerbot.com.

This week on MakerBot TV hear all about how MakerBot Industries and Miles Lightwood are using 3D printing to help out hermit crabs, also find out how you can use your makerbot to prepare yourself for halloween and get a tour of NYC with MakerBot’s new mascot!

Special Thanks to Thingiverse user Fido for the evil eyes earwear and ghost keyring designs, daviddotshaw for the bat, ghost and pumpkin magnet designs, builttospec for the spider ring, colehard for the pumpkin, Wajazn for the MB/RepRap jack-o-lantern, nicholasclewis for the spider web, lampmaker for the glasses, and SuperAmi for the pirate hook. And a special thanks to Kevin MacLeod and Alan Bjorklund for the music.

Now that the days are growing shorter and the wind grows chilly, it’s normal for a young man’s thoughts to turn to…buckyballs.  And now, thanks to the dedicated work of pmoews, we have not only some lovely, printable .stls but also some lovely, parametric OpenSCAD models to generate as many different fullerenes as you could possibly imagine!

So, as the seasons change, you can start off your week printing the Dymaxion molecule!

Buckyballs - Molecular Models by pmoews

Here's a simple molecular modeling program written in OPENscad. It's a derivative of the OPENscad program in "Protein Models". It contains two modules, "atom" and "bond". A call to atom makes a sphere and a call to bond makes a cylinder. Atom requires a radius and a set of atomic coordinates; bond requires two sets of atomic coordinates. For example to make a water molecule we could write: atom (.3, 0, 0, 0); // an Oxygen at the origin, .3 for its radius atom (.25, -.96, 0, 0); // for the first H atom, .25 for its radius atom (.25, .24, .93, 0); // for the second H atom bond (0,0,0,-.96,0,0); // for the first O-H bond bond (0,0,0,.24,.93.0); // for the second o-H bond To render it all together the above commands are included within a union statement. More details in makewater.scad. Once I had this program I began looking for coordinates of interesting molecules to print. I found a collection of fullerenes at ccl.net/cca/data/fullerenes/index.shtml Better known as "Buckyballs" you can read about the fullerenes on Wikipedia. The buckyball most discussed contains 60 carbon atoms but the coordinate collection has a range of sizes, from 20 to 540 atms.

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Printable Parametric Pirate Ship by MakerBlock

SuperAmi’s parametric pirate hook reminded me that I’ve been wanting a printable pirate ship for a while.  My first attempt, designed in Sketchup, leaves a lot to be desired.  This time, I wanted something of which I could really be proud.  My designs use just cubes, cylinders, union, difference, intersection, translate, rotate, scale, and modules.  Since I’ve documented the sum total of all of my OpenSCAD knowledge in this blog, if you’ve followed along with tutorial series you should be able to design your own pirate ship too!  Thingiverse has a lot of rocket ships and space ships, but very few ship ships.  I’d like your help in changing this.

The challenge for you is as follows:

• Design a pirate ship using OpenSCAD.
• Upload an STL and OpenSCAD design file to Thingiverse.
• Tag your design with “openscad pirate ship“.  Please also tag your design with “pirate ship” and “OpenSCAD,” to make it easier for others to find your designs in the future.

Eternal glory, the admiration of the citizens of Thingiverse, and 9,000 internet points await:

• The first person to print an OpenSCAD pirate ship and post a picture of their print to Thingiverse
• The first person to upload an OpenSCAD pirate ship
• Any person who uploads an OpenSCAD pirate ship with additional details such as cannons, bowsprit, plank, rowboats, portholes
• The first person to design, upload as a single STL, and print an OpenSCAD pirate ship inside an OpenSCAD Klein bottle

OpenSCAD Pirate Ship by MakerBlock

A printable OpenSCAD pirate ship. While it will definitely require support for the bow, the rest of the model should not. The OpenSCAD code isn't commented at all, so it may be difficult to follow. There are two main parameters - "shipscale" and "th." The first parameter "shipscale" is the size the entire ship is based on. It roughly corresponds to the overall height of the model. The second parameter "th" refers to the thickness of many of the features. The STL below has the thickness set to 0.6mm. It should probably be about 1mm or so for optimal printability. This ship features three masts with three sails each, a rudder, deck, captain's quarters, bow, and crow's nest. As an FYI, this pirate ship was made with just "cubes" and "cylinders."

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