MakerBot Industries

As it gets to the candle-lighting hour here on the East Coast, it really feels like (C)Hanu(k)kah 2k11 is going to be a good one.  And what’s the number one accessory for the festival of lights?

OK, well, yes, candles.  But the number two accessory is definitely the dreidel!  And thanks to the prolific Zydac, Thingiverse has a lovely example to help share out the gelt.

Well done, Thingiverse!  Now what about some printable latkes?

Dreidel by Zydac

Fast spinning dreidel for Hannukah. Makes a good stocking stuffer for Christmas too! Update 12/20/2011: Dreidel 03 has the Hebrew letters flipped the right way. Doh!

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A broken lock and me without my MakerBot

As you may not know, I don’t actually work at the BotCave/MakerBot Headquarters in Brooklyn.¹  Today for my day job I had to go to a bunch of meetings in a building that was filled with meeting rooms.  I had left a bunch of my work, backpack, and some other stuff in one particular meeting room while I went to go make some copies.  When I came back I discovered that the door had locked behind me because something inside the mechanism was broken. ²  Although I was able to get into the room eventually, I needed to be in and out of several meeting rooms and it became a pain to find someone to let me back in.

Now, if I only had my trusty MakerBot with me, I could have just ripped out a quick doorstop, propped the door open, or perhaps over-engineered a little plate that would fit inside the door jamb to prevent the door from locking.  Or, I could even have put the call out to Thingiverse for someone to design a brand new door handle and lock.

How would a MakerBot have changed your day today?

1. In fact, it was a condition of my employment… [↩]
2. Photo courtesy of Auntie P [↩]