MakerBot Industries

Joshua Pierce sent us email about his contest.

You are invited to participate in a design competition for development of sustainable technologies and their components for printing on open source 3-D printers.

The goal of the contest is to facilitate an open exchange of 3-D sustainable technology designs that can be printed to meet various
needs in the context of sustainable and self directed development. 3-D printers such as RepRap and open sourced innovation hold great promise for development of appropriate technologies to help millions of world’s poorest communities reach a better standard of living. Designs will be judged on the technical printing viability, feasibility and functionality of the innovation, as well as sustainability from ecological, economic and social perspectives.

Anyone can enter the competition but the contestants must post their digital designs on Thingiverse under an open license (e.g. CC-BY-SA). The contest is funded by the Queen’s Applied Sustainability Group and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

There’s no website for the contest that we can find, but there is a pdf!

hipsta by pomalin

Thingiverse citizen pomalin is the winner of 9000 internet points and bragging rights for being the first to upload a “moregangsta” challenge mashup! ¹ The one I was really hoping someone would upload first was a HipSTA – and thanks to pomalin  now there is one!

There are still more points and bragging rights to be had!

hipsta by pomalin

First try for an hipsta, don't know yet if it's printable without raft, because I run out of filament, but will try as soon as I have some. Hipsta-third uploaded, it's a three parts print, should print better, and be taller. edit : Bobble head hipsta uploaded edit 2 : add each three parts to fit a thing-o-matic

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1. Pomalin also gets another 9000 points for being the first to upload one of the specific models for the challenge. [↩]

If you follow our blog regularly, you may have noticed a serious dearth of things related to dollhouses, even though MakerBots are ideal for creating dollhouse items, and also sort of look like dollhouses if you squint.  Thank you PrettySmallThings for helping us rectify this situation!

This is a great debut Thingiverse item, and we hope to see many more, perhaps including tea sets and canopy beds.  Also, nice platform-leveling system!  Welcome to the community; we look forward to more tiny, dainty furniture!

Miniature Queen Anne Chair by PrettySmallThings

This is a miniature Queen Anne style chair, designed for use in scale models and dollhouses. The files below are provided in 1/2" = 1'-0" scale, also known as 1:24. My design goals were: Maintain delicate proportions, but balance the need for durability. Print without support Good looking resolution, with little cleanup needed This does print at 50% (1/4" scale or 1:48) but is very fragile. I imagine that printing at 200% (1" scale or 1:12, typical dollhouse scale) would require support, and I have not tested it.

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