MakerBot Industries

This is one of several guest posts I’ll be making during the Project Shellter residency.

While Project Shellter is new, it did not emerge from a vacuum. Exploration into the mathematics of sea shells dates back decades, and the desire to help out hermit crabs, years. Project Shellter benefits from these investigations and innovations.

In chronological order, here is a partial list of precedents that inform the project.

Mathematics

In the 1960s, interest in the beauty and mathematics of sea shells held the attention of computer graphics pioneers. One of the first to publish his findings was David M. Raup. His landmark papers have informed generations of researchers since, serving as canonical references within the fields of both biological and computer science.

Alternative Material

Glass blowers have created shells that are beautiful and photogenic. However, due to cost and the rambunctious nature of happy healthy hermit crabs – a broken shell could be fatal – glass shells are a seldom-used novelty. This image by photographer Frank Greenaway was created in 2004.

Alternative Design

Photo credit

In 2005, Dr. Elizabeth Demaray and a group of engineering students at Rutgers University explored alternative hermit crab shell designs. The Hand Up Project was the culmination of their research and it was the first project to use rapid prototyping materials and processes to manufacture hermit crab shells.

Project Shellter

Photo credit

Building on these and other precedents, Project Shellter aims to engage the community of 3D printer operators to crowd-source the science and resources necessary to design and manufacture viable hermit crab shells for domestic use. The goal is to reduce harvesting of natural shells as a way to address shortages in the wild.

It is an open source, pragmatic, social investigation into hermit crab behavior as a means to create 3D printable shells. The public nature of the project is designed to encourage simultaneous investigations.

The first prototype shell model has been placed in the public domain and is available now.

Project Shellter is social! Follow, share and contribute to help save hermit crabs by keeping natural shells in the wild!

• ProjectShellter.com
• @ProjectShellter
• @ShellterEast
• @ShellterWest
• Thingiverse
• bit.ly/​projectshellter

For those wishing to dig deeper, here is a partial bibliography of research informing Project Shellter.

Computer as Aid in Describing Form in Gastropod Shells 

Geometric Analysis of Shell Coiling: General Problems

Population Consequences of Shell Utilization by Hermit Crabs

Competition and Mechanism of Coexistence in Three Sympatric of Intertidal Hermit Crabs

Modeling Seashells

Hermit Crab Shell Design

Shell-selection behavior of the hermit crab Pagurus granosimanus in Relation to Isolation, Competition, and Predation

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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MakerBot took New York Comic Con by storm last week! Amidst the costumed superheroes, anime characters, and vampires, stood the Thing-O-Matic — the only real robot at New York Comic Con!

See the action for yourself in the above clip from G4′s Attack of the Show. Jason Mewes (aka Jay of Jay and Silent Bob fame) stopped by the booth and talked to MakerBot’s Keith Ozar who showed off some our favorite printed objects.

Lots of awesome folks in costumes stopped by the booth (shared with the badass guys at MetalMachine), but these two dudes dressed as the Super Mario Bros. were out favorite. Of course they had to pose with the turtle shell racers…

We also got a nice shout out from the adafruit blog who said “It’s incredibly smart of MakerBot to have a booth at the Comic-Con, this type of out reach to comic community is how we’ll collectively add more makers to the DIY movement. It’s also good for business – nice work!” Photo by Cory Doctorow.

At the heart of the MakerBot Workshop bustles a very special cluster of machines — a ring of fifteen to twentyMakerBots(3D printers) called the BotFarm. These machines are each tuned to fabricate a tremendous array of objects, seven days a week — projects like artwork for Laurie Anderson, covers for Time Out New York, window displays for the New Museum, props for the Colbert Report, cutting edge DIY toys for our distributors, secret machines for our collaborators, and 3D printed robot mascots for video production.  The MakerBot Workshop Technician is responsible for keeping the BotFarm functioning productively, while wrangling the many print projects that must be completed.

While we prefer to work with current MakerBot Operators with prior experience operating MakerBots, we welcome anyone who can make a case for experience repairing, operating, maintaining, and optimizing other equipment: DIY projects, carpentry, RC cars/planes/quadrocopters, robotics, puppetry, stopmotion animation, fine art presses, motion picture cameras, photo printing, silkscreening, industrial machinery, packaging machines, for example. What machines do you love working with and how have you kept them humming along in perfect working order?

Check out our job description for further details!

No phone calls, please. Please submit your resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile to hiring (at) makerbot.com.

That’s right kids!  The glow is back in 3 mm, and, is now available for the first time in 1.75 mm!!

If you’re like us, you love using your MakerBot for decoration, and this is the sine qua non for all your Halloween-related prints.  Why print a ghost when you can print a glowing ghost?  Or isn’t a glowing skull better than one that, you know, doesn’t glow?  And best of all, now you can print glowing objects with your Stepstruder® MK7!

We are seriously excited that this shipment is here in time to get it to you by Halloween — grab it now and have the scariest, glowiest Halloween party on your block!