MakerBot Industries

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.

The New York Times addresses the issue of copyrighting physical objects on their Bits Blog, and of course, mentions MakerBot. In what they he calls Industrial Revolution 2.0, the Times’ Nick Bilton looks at the impact of 3D printing on the future of manufacturing, and on the idea of ownership in general.

Unlike music, movies, or books, printed objects typically cannot be copyrighted because they are useful items rather than simply aesthetic ones. Bilton uses the example of a coffee mug to illustrate his point. Who knows what the future holds, but for now, keep printing those coffee mugs! Trust me, I went to Ikea yesterday, and I would rather print my own mug any day than wait in that line!

It’s a Back to Fall Episode of MakerBot TV and this week we’re talking about MakerBots in schools! Find out about the educational program that Liz Arum and Jon Santiago have been putting together for teachers and students using MakerBots in their classrooms. Plus get a sneak peak into the winter stash of some MakerBotted Squirrels!

Huge thanks this week to Liz Arum, Jon Santiago, Dara Ross and her students. As well as Failotron for the music.

 

Check out the educational curriculum: http://curriculum.makerbot.com/
Email MakerBot’s educational team: education@makerbot.com

MakerBot Operator Justin Mijal has his Thing-O-Matic well-tuned — and has been shooting beautiful macro videos of his MakerBot in action. Check out his experiments with high-speed printing and low-layer heights!

A quick update from the Botcave stockroom: we’ve just had a delivery of ABS plastic and we are pleased to be able to offer some MK7-compatible 1.75 mm plastic.  Small-filament ABS has been a hot commodity since we first announced the Stepstruder® MK7, so don’t hesitate if you’re in the market for a few spools!

We’re also pleased to announce for that we can offer silver ABS in 3 mm filament for the first time, for those of you printing with MK6 and earlier extruders!

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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snakesta by cibomahto

Thingiverse’s all time most-mashed up model on Thingiverse has got to be the “gangsta” by Yzorg.  However, there are a number of things on Thingiverse that really should be mashed up with a gangsta.

1. STAtue of Liberty – She stands for liberty and freedom…  and slouching.
2. The ThinkSTA – He’s thinking… about his life as a gangsta.
3. DeathSTAr – The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the potential of the gangsta.
4. NatashSTA the pen holder -  Don’t mess with her.  She’s carrying… a pen.
5. GnomeSTA – Because it would be so cool to have a bunch of GnomeSTAs lounging around a garden.
6. Project ShellSTA – Because even hermit crabs need a gangsta hideout.
7. Bucket of OctopSTA – What has eight arms and is more gangsta than you?
8. SkullSTA – Nothing has more gangsta street cred than an actual skull.
9. STArfish – Sure, there’s already a *sta, but don’t you want a gangsta that’s a little more… fishy?
10. HipSTA – Because I really really really want a HipSTA.  I want to put it on the edge of my desk and wait for someone to ask what it is.  “Oh, it’s this mashup-meme.  You’ve probably never heard of it.”

This challenge is pretty easy with 10 possible winners.  All you have to do is mashup the gangsta with one of the models above.  Tag your entries with “moregangsta.”  Please also be sure to add appropriate other tags to your designs.  It’s also good form to add derivative links to the designs of others’ you use.  9000 internet points, bragging rights, and a blog-nod to the first-to-upload-a-challenge-entry and to each first entry in one of the 10 categories above.

Good luck!

MakerBot is excited to be named one of the 20 Most Innovative Tech Start-Ups by SAI’s Business Insider! The list was created by the team at SAI, as well as a crew of investors and entrepreneurs.

Why does Business Insider say we’re innovative? ” Printing 3D images, including Stephen Colbert’s head, is both original and awesome.”

Check out all 20 innovative start-ups here!