MakerBot Industries

Earlier this year, videos circulated revealing prototypes of Japanese “nekomimi”¹ — robotic, wearable cat costume ears that bend, twist and re-orient based on a wearer’s mood and brain activity. This impressive, if whimsical, engineering feat makes a great deal more sense within the context of the endless repetition of the motif of catgirls in Japanese manga, anime and cosplay.² But even beyond these cultural associations, anyone who has spent time with a housecat has probably noticed the expressive qualities of cat ears.

Ever since the high-end tech demos surfaced, DIY Makers world-over have been experimenting with how to accomplish this type of project using components at least a few orders of magnitude cheaper than research-grade brain scanning equipment. In fact, MakerBot R&D staffer and anime-fan Benjamin Rockhold has a folder full of mechanical and arduino sketches to address this very chibi-awesome design challenge.³

Well, MakerBot Operator Josh DiMauro not only beat everyone to the punch, he has brought the whole project in at a price that has kickstarted an entire branch of DIY, affordable brain-mappable appendages with his MindWave Cat Ears project on Thingiverse. And he was able to accomplish his mission quickly over the course of scores of iterations thanks to his MakerBot Cupcake!
Follow below the fold for a quick interview with Josh in the wake the posting of his own tech demo video (at the head of this article).
Read the rest of this entry »

1. combination of Japanese words for “cat” and “ears” [↩]
2. There are further recurrences of this image in the darker crevices of the Internets — I suggest you neglect to investigate further. [↩]
3. He is both delighted, and disappointed, that someone else got there first. [↩]

OpenSCAD (Theoretical) Rocket Science -- Don't try this at home!

Just a quick post to remind all of the members of the MakerBot Operators Group New York (MUGNY) that the second meeting of the OpenSCAD Study Group will be this Thursday in the MakerBot Workshop. I have in almost all of the homework from last month’s event — quite the success, folks! — and we plan to share it back with those who have been participating so that we can launch these tips and tricks on Thursday!

Make sure to arrive as close to 6:30pm as possible, as many of those attending will be heading right up to the NYCResistor Craft Night immediately at 8pm. The next meeting will be held the third Thursday of December: Dec 15th!

What: MUGNY OpenSCAD Study Group Meeting

When: Thursday, Nov 17th from 6:30pm-8:00pm

Where: MakerBot Workshop, 314 Dean Street, Brooklyn NY

Who: MakerBot Operators, OpenSCAD users, and their allies!

There have been rumors (well, emails and plans and such) to start Study Groups in San Francisco and possibly Seattle. If you are hosting (or hungering for) a Study Group in your area, drop us a message to griffin at MakerBot dot com and I’ll make sure to spread the word!

We’re excited to announce that we’ve started carrying Sugru in the MakerBot store. This air curing rubber is just plain fantastic! It feels like modeling clay, and you simply hand mold it into the shape you need – that’s pretty much it. It cures in under 24 hours, taking on the characteristics you expect of rubber – it’s soft, flexible, grippy, waterproof, and can withstand extreme temperatures. It’s a fantastic way to improve everyday items in your life – The first thing I did was fix my fraying laptop power cable.

But that’s just the tip of what’s exciting – it’s all about what happens when you attach Sugru to one of our favorite filaments. It turns out Sugru bonds particularly well to ABS, making the two completely inseparable buddies. Want proof? Check out the video at the bottom.

We have a lot of cool ideas for tricking out Makerbot Prints with Sugru – In fact our very own Annelise has kinda fallen in love with the possibilities, so she’s been making all sorts of fun things that we’ll show you in the next few days.

We’re also planning on hosting a Thingiverse design challenge to see what kinds of interesting uses for Sugru our talented community can come up with. I have no doubt awesome things will happen with Sugru and Makerbots. Basically Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Sugru comes in large pouches of 12 minipacks in multiple colors for $18 or black and white for $20 on our store starting today.