Picture courtesy of Simon Fieldhouse

Tomorrow, the MakerBot Community and the Metropolitan Museum of Art join forces to realize a common dream, one likely to revolutionize how we all think about art and museums.

For the team from the Met Museum — America’s most iconic museum, a world-beloved, forward-thinking art institution — the dream is to collaborate with cutting-edge artists and DIY-makers, to discover how one might bring the relevant, emerging art practice of 3D capture and 3D printing to bear on the task of enlarging the public conversation about works in their permanent collection. For the MakerBot Community — many of us devoted lovers of the Met, brimming with stories for how the institution and its collection have impacted our lives — this is the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to clip on our Met Museum entry pins, roll up our sleeves, and do what we do best for the betterment of lovers of the Met world-over.

June 1-2, for the first time in history, a collection of brilliant digital artists from the MakerBot Community will be graciously welcomed by the Met in New York City to study, capture, and recreate pieces from the Met’s vast collection of art and artifacts. These artists – stay tuned and we’ll tell you who! – will capture significant works into the digital domain using Autodesk’s 123D Catch, clean up and manipulate the resulting models, and then produce replicas and original pieces of art on our 3rd generation 3D printer, The Replicator.

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In support of her new book Before the Lights Go Out, Boing Boing’s Maggie Koerth-Baker hosted a discussion in NYC yesterday with the New America Foundation about the future of energy systems. Will centralized systems prevail, or will individuals and small communities find ways to meet their own energy needs?

Looking forward to some transcripts from this talk, but in the mean time, this reminded me to check in with the Prometheus Fusion Perfection blog, run by MakerBot Operator Mark Suppes, and the project’s new intern Domenick Bauer. PFP is an open-source project with the goal of finding a true energy solution through fusion. More here.

It looks like those guys have been using their Thing-O-Matic to prototype a couple of parts for the electron gun portion of their Bussard fusion reactor. The part ultimately needs to be ceramic, because it needs to be a great insulator and have a high heat tolerance. But to get the shape right, Domenick modeled the parts in OpenSCAD and made them with the Thing-O-Matic in the lab. They seem to have run out of nuclear green ABS, since all the pictures show the parts in blue. That’s okay, I guess.

The armature’s job is to hold the hot cathode in line with the accelerator annode and a piece of phosphor. They modeled the whole setup in a few pieces and assembled them with glue. The base is curved in order to sit nicely inside the reactor chamber.

Here’s what the assembled prototype for the armature looked like, but without the branch that holds the phosphor:

The version they ultimately sent to Shapeways for printing in ceramic is the model you see below. It’s shaped appropriately to hold the particular piece of phosphor they plan to use. That’s the beauty of having a MakerBot in your lab: make a frame for your oddly shaped piece of whatever, and make it just right.

Watch this space. It’s exciting work being done with a MakerBot, and it’s all open-source.

All of us wonder what to do with scrap plastic, and while the world tackles the challenge of re-filamentizing all those goodies, let’s remember there are good ways to use it. RichRap has invited everyone to make their own art out of melted PLA and submit the photos to his Thingiverse entry.

Here are the basics from his blog, and a few pics, including one version from 2ROBOTGUY.

You will need -

An oven
Baking tray
Aluminium foil
Scrap bits of PLA and any failed prints
Beer – (to help with artistic inspiration)

Lay the Aluminium foil on the tray and place your largest scrap parts onto it, don’t space them too much apart as they will produce a smaller pool of plastic than you would think.

Optionally use some filament to make a round or shaped outer ring to keep all the plastic in if you want a nice shape.

More at Rich’s blog.

All of RichRap's scrap plastic from before April 12

2ROBOTGUY's scrap plastic art

via Ponoko blog

Our tips line got this WYMB submission from another MakerBot all-star: HotKey.

The home of the great MakerBot Cupcake CNC #1401

HotKey, aka Bernhard, is the maker of the Ninja Fridge Shuriken (Thingiverse Featured!). And the making doesn’t stop there: Bernhard’s brother Leo designed Mikey, one of the totally sweet runners-up in the MakerBot/GrabCAD mascot design challenge. I bet this family gives each other good gifts.

We’ve seen several MakerBots on table tops so far, and just one sitting inside a cabinet or shelf. Bernhard has his inside an IKEA Astvik cabinet, which has a closing. When it’s rolled down, he tells us that everything looks tidy, and it’s quiet enough to watch a movie while the MakerBot does its work. Nice!