Hi MakerBot World! My name is Jaclyn and I am the Recruiter for MakerBot Industries. From time to time on this blog, I will be updating you on open positions and new hires!

Right now, MakerBot is in a hiring frenzy and we want to make sure that the remarkable people who visit our website are a part of it.

As the good word on MakerBot spreads and the company continues to grow, we need more and more support. That is where you come in. We are currently hiring for 25 positions, including all levels and skill types!

Visit our Jobs page to see the full list, but please check the list below for top priority positions for this week:

Director of Product Marketing
MakerBot is looking for an experienced, creative, energetic and out-of-the-box person to direct our product marketing. We are looking for a self-starter who has worked in entrepreneurial, start-up environments. You will have an eye for detail to conceive and develop innovative marketing programs that drive demand of MakerBot products.

See the full requirements for this position here.

Marketing Assistant
MakerBot is looking for an assistant for the Marketing team. You must be a well-organized, go-getter who is willing to help out with any and all needs of the marketing team.

See the full requirements for this position here.

Copywriter
MakerBot Industries is looking for an energetic, passionate, conceptual and strategic Copywriter, someone who has a desire to deliver innovative successful solutions.

See the full requirements for this position here.

CAD Designer/Drafter Technician
We are looking for meticulous, technically oriented, hands-on individuals who can work effectively in a team.

See the full requirements for this position here.

Mechanical Engineer
We are looking for creative, inventive, and self-directed engineers who can develop, improve and test new mechanical systems.

See the full requirements for this position here.

Junior Python/C++ Software Developer
We are looking for smart, capable, qualified programmers that can help us hurtle MakerBot Industries into the twenty-second century, and beyond. Candidates will be strong coders with good communication and community skills. You’ll be creating our next-generation software, maintaining our current code base, and interacting with our users to help address their needs and improve 3D printing for everyone.

See the full requirements for this position here.

EARTH DAY is this Sunday, April 22nd and to celebrate, this week we’ll be sharing some awesome examples of makers doing their part to save the planet, and giving you ideas for ways you can participate.

This afternoon, we want to draw your attention to a fun contest that falls right into the Earth Day mission.

MAKE Magazine recently partnered with Schick to launch the Project Remake Contest to find the next great green maker. The contest wants to recognize ingenious ideas for making old things into new things. Whether your thing is de-soldering legacy motherboards for their reusable components, building furniture out of reclaimed plastics, or fabricating sculpture from waste objects, enter Project Remake for the chance to win one of 5 MakerBot Replicators!

One Grand Prize winner will receive (in addition to a Replicator) an expenses-paid trip for two (and their winning project!) to World Maker Faire in New York City this September.

Project Remake is already accepting entries, and will continue to run until May 14. The countdown is on!

As you think about what you might submit, remember that projects may be functional, utilitarian, or simply beautiful. This is a great opportunity for those in the MakerBot community who love to work on less artistic things. Ultimately, submissions will be judged against the following criteria:

• Originality & Creativity
• Alignment with the goals of Project Remake
• Eco-Friendliness
• Feasibility
• Media & Public Interest

Are you ready? Are the gears turning? Then go get started here!

Lastly, we must include this note to our international readers: to be eligible to win, you must be a legal resident of one of the 50 US states or the District of Columbia, and be 18 years of age or older at the time of entry. Complete rules can be found online here.

Go get ‘em, Makers!

What do you think of this? The Smithsonian Archives has a Wikipedian-in-Residence, whose mission is, in part, to make sure women scientists are duly represented in that crowd-sourced online encyclopedia.

I started to contemplate this a little bit because I could never have posted about Ada Lovelace of Grace Hopper in the past week or so without Wikipedia. It’s gotten to the point that if someone isn’t profiled in Wikipedia I almost conclude that their accomplishments must not have been noteworthy.

But Sarah Stierch is having to host Wikipedia edit-a-thons to correct a big gap:

“One of the biggest complaints we get is that women who are involved in science don’t always have a great chance of having their articles saved on Wikipedia, because people don’t think they’re notable enough….”

Among the edit-a-thon’s targeted scientists were Mary Agnes Chase, a botanist who funded her own research in South America at the turn of the 20th century because it was considered inappropriate for women to do field work, and Mary J. Rathburn, a Smithsonian zoologist from the same time period who described over a thousand new species and subspecies of crustaceans.

Yikes! These scientists were not already documented on Wikipedia? I’ll have to take this into consideration from now on.

Hey, who among you are working on the MakerBot Wikipedia entry? It looks like it could use some information on The Replicator.

There’s a point in every man’s life when he says, “nuclear fusion seems like something I could accomplish in my apartment.”

Note: typo above. Should read, “one man’s.”  And that one man is Mark Suppes, aka Famulus Fusion.

We posted about Mark’s work a couple weeks ago. He’s the guy in Brooklyn using a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic to make parts for his Bussard fusion reactor (or Polywell). My colleagues and I were so intrigued by this project that we nicely informed Mark we were simply going to have to stop by to see this with our own eyes. Last week, he graciously welcomed us into his work space – no longer housed in his apartment – for some photos and a chat. Here’s what we learned.

One of the questions I hear a lot when I am out at events – showing MakerBots to people who have never seen them before – is, “What is the cost of materials for a MakerBotted object?” Sure, filament is inexpensive, but how much filament are you using when you print? In this episode I’ll show you exactly how to calculate that cost. I’ll also reveal the number of chess pieces that can be printed with a single spool and the cost of MakerBot plastic by cm³ and inch³. All that and more on this week’s episode of MakerBot TV.

Happy Monday, Makers. In case you haven’t seen this fully functional Nintendo Controller coffee table, please take this opportunity to look at this fully functional Nintendo Controller coffee table.

I won’t say too much about this maple/mahogany/walnut beauty, as it speaks for itself. It’s on sale at Etsy and currently being raffled at Dude! I want that.

It just so happens we were recently discussing game controller hacks in the office, prompted by a user on Thingiverse. Along the lines of the table above (okay, not really at all), is it possible to mold the basic scheme of a particular controller into something more custom?

First we wondered about reprinting the casing of a broken controller, or doing a quick sketchup and print of a joystick that broke off. But what if you wanted the joystick on the right, not the left, and what if your hand is so large or small that you want the D-button on the top, not the front. I’m making these examples up, but the question is: given the electronics of a controller designed for a particular console, could you 3D print a better shape to fit your hands and style of play? Or is style of play already so strongly determined by the familiar shapes of existing controllers? (,asked the non-gamer.)

Now, I’m basically talking about ergonomics, not aesthetic mods and not entirely new ways of interfacing with a game. As for the latter, these guys have some pretty sweet ideas: