MakerBot Industries

What’s the best thing about owning a MakerBot? Making things for all the people you love and care about. These fantastic little bags are perfect for gifting your favorite MakerBot prints. The cotton muslin bags are 4″ x 6″, with orange drawstrings and are lovingly silk-screened by hand (thanks Tony Sherwood and John Dimatos!). Exuding wonder in every R.Maker-sized package, they are available now for only $2.

Instructions for use:

1. Print beloved object on your MakerBot 3D Printer.

2. Place said print in your wonderful MakerBot Bag : You are now the I in ‘I made this for you’.

3. Place the Gift Bag on the fireplace mantel, on his bedside table, or hang it on the fridge.

4. Repeat.

Not for your Spanish Omelet.

For those who thought to themselves, “I want an Egg-Bot, but it won’t work for me on my ostrich farm,” this one’s for you. The Ostrich Egg-Bot kit is a special, extra large version of the original open-source Original Egg-Bot kit with a chassis that fits larger objects, up to 6.25″ in diameter(!) – perfect for ostrich, emu, and your run-of-the-mill jumbo chicken eggs.

It can tackle wine glasses, Christmas ornaments, mini pumpkins, and more, so vegetarians can get their paint on, guilt-free!

The Ostrich Egg-Bot is equipped with CNC cut plywood, and laser engraved calibration and assembly marks. With high-torque precision stepping motors, this bot means business. Get one today!

They're not gonna catch us. We're on a mission from MakerBot.

Howdy intrepid MakerBot Operators! Today we have released the newest additions to our line of experimental nozzles, the 1.0 mm and 1.5 mm MK7 big bore nozzles. Carefully machined in house by our own Charles Pax, these nozzles are custom made and doubly awesome. These nozzles will have you printing at the round cutting edge of MakerBot extrusion. Maybe it’s just me, but when I see this photo I can’t help but think of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd tearing down the highway on their way to Chicago.

This nozzle is designed for MK7 users, so those with a Plastruder MK5 and Stepstruder MK6 will unfortunately have to sit this one out.

Make sure to adjust your Print-O-Matic settings accordingly. Limited supply so get them while you can!

In a Hackerspace, somewhat far away, is a man named Dave Langkamp. A retired industrial designer of 33 years (twenty years designing at John Deere), Dave hasn’t rested on his laurels. One of his creations is this 50′s style UFO (printed on a MakerBot Cupcake) which contains an astonishing 133 parts! It now awaits its finishing coats and killer paint job.

In addition to the UFO, Dave is working on a 1/24th scale Semi tractor and trailer (which will carry the UFO), as well as a glider with a 54 inch wingspan! You can check out Dave’s blog for updates on his projects: http://thetinkersworkshop.blogspot.com/

We’re big fans of Hackerspaces here at MakerBot, and without one, Dave’s projects might have had some trouble getting off the ground. The Quad Cities Collaboration and Hackerspace located in Davenport, Iowa is a haven for for designers, technologists, educators, hobbysits, and anyone who wants to experience a great sense of community. If you’re in the Davenport area, it just might be worth looking up.

When most of think us of internal combustion engines, we think of pistons exploding in a beautiful dance, with a crankshaft turning linear motion into circular motion. It’s a sight to see, and we can even print out such an example, courtesy of sirmakesalot.

However, there are other engines out there, and none perhaps more interesting than the Wankel engine. ROBK636 has created the engine rotor (as a fun keychain!) of this unorthodox design. Known perhaps most famously for being the engine of choice for the Mazda RX-7 and RX-8 sports cars, the Wankel engine has a place in hearts of many a gearhead. We thank ROBK636 for bringing this keychain to Thingiverse, and I hope this is just the start. How long before I can print out an entire assembly?

RX-7 / RX-8 Rotary Engine Rotor Keychain by ROBK636

Basic model of the engine rotor. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_engine

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It’s not unusual for us to receive requests for DXF files for our MakerBot machines and Scott Hunter did just that – asking for the files that would enable his group of students the ability to replace the wooden components of his school’s Thing-O-Matic with various colors of acrylic. What caught my attention was that his students were 12 year old girls, from Scotland, with a penchant for designing the future of Formula 1 cars. Yep.

The students, involved in the F1 in Schools Technology Challenge, are using CAD/CAM(Computer Aided Manufacture) software to communicate their vision. The participants are encouraged to consider everything from physics, aerodynamics, design, and manufacture, to branding, graphics, sponsorship and more. It’s a comprehensive competition with wind and smoke tunnels, culminating with a race down a 20 meter track with the cars going as fast as 60 kmh (over 37 mph!).

The competition permits the use of 3D printers for the front and rear aerofoils of their miniature gas powered balsa wood F1 cars (manufactured on a CNC machine), and Scott’s team chose the Thing-O-Matic to help them get to the finish line. As you can see from the photo above, it’s looking great! With an international field of contestants (34 countries) aged 9-19 (for a total of 12 million(!) students), and fierce competition, the Challenge is more worth following…if you can keep up.

Once in a while an item comes up on Thingiverse that I just have to print. Immediately. Eried‘s awesome fastening system was one of those items. Using raised knobs spaced perfectly apart, this fastening system differentiates itself from the hook and loop system we all know.

By his own admission the system is not yet perfected, but Eried’s got a great start on his design. I’ve printed some out (you should too!) and have had fun testing its strength and the sound it makes when taking two sides apart. Make sure to join the discussion to offer suggestions for improvements and naming!

Printable VELCRO by eried

This is the first iteration (third internal) of my attempt to make printable Velcro. It is pretty nice to hang things, probably this small piece will resist much more than a kilogram of weight (hanging weight) and it is very easy to remove. 3d printing revolution is just starting, I don't say this is a flawless piece but I really consider it is a very good example about a very sweet future about us modifying our brains from "search-buy-adapt" (frustration included) to "think-design-print" (self-pride included :D ). Quick demo video: youtube.com/watch?v=BtLSMI3xVDY Quick demo #2 (perpendicular): youtube.com/watch?v=eLehgIfjmpA This was an object that did not exist in our 3d printing world, so I like to think this is an "upgrade" from real world to a better virtual&teleportable world ;)

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If this sounds familiar, I apologize. You wash your pots and pans carefully, and on the rare occasion, even use soap. With your dishtowel, you dry off the last remnants of H20 and with any luck, you have a clean, water-free, cooking tool…with no home. The top of the stove looks convenient, until your last night’s sauce pan gets in the way of your cast iron skillet for your daily ostrich, bacon, and cheese omelet.

I’m a sucker for practicality and to this day have been looking for a good place to store my pots and pans. The cabinets work, until I have to stack one item on top of another, inevitably dirtying the bottom pot or pan. PolygonPusher‘s hook is brilliant: Strong, functional, and cheap. I’ll be printing some of these today to hang underneath my kitchen side table.

What’s particularly interesting about this Thingiverse item is the conversation about the, well, practicality of printing out such an item, when it would seem that these hooks could be sourced locally. PolyGonPusher gives a great explanation for why he did what he did, and it’s yet another example of what makes Thingiverse a fantastic forum for 3D design and printing.

Hook for hanging pots and pans by PolygonPusher

In this project I build a set of shelves for hanging pots and pans in my kitchen. For that I needed 27 hooks. In my local hardware store I did not find any suitable hooks so I decided to design and 3D print my own! :) This also saved me some money since a simple hook in the store costs $4 a piece, making the total $108!

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The Be Your Own Souvenir campaign continues. Having just wrapped up a spot at Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria, the blablabLAB team is heading to London for Alpha-ville for what should be another great festival. If you’re gonna be in London between the 22nd of 25th of September, you should go check ‘em out, just like the love birds out there in Linz.

Under the guidance of Professors Alberto Valero PhD and Juan Gonzalez PhD, students at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid have been taking advantage of an optional seminar, which focuses on the study of 3D design and printing. Using Open Source tools, this new program is the first of its kind in Spain, and the early returns have been tremendous.

Studying OpenSCAD for designing, and building a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic (named Madre) for printing, students have been looking at how to create and improve upon robotic mechanisms. Inspired by items on Thingiverse, the students have been printing their designs for over three months, eight hours per day, and to date, have gone through over 12kg of plastic! They have even been using it more than their industrial 3D printer. Professor Valero summed it up pretty well: “THIS IS PLASTIC VALLEY.”

You can see a sampling of their work on Thingiverse, under the tag, UC3M. One of the more challenging projects for now and for the future has been to take obijuan‘s MiniSkyBot and make adjustments to make it capable of moving through a sand box.

After a successful introduction to 3D design and printing, the university will soon be expanding to include even more classes, and MakerBots! One class in particular, “Designing and Printing of Mechanical Parts with Open Source Tools’ for the Robotics and Automation Master program looks very promising. Based on what we’ve seen so far, we have high hopes for the program’s future!

Caterpillator by Olalla

This is a printable caterpillar robot with gear wheels and links -kind of tank-like ;) . This is part a project developed in the UC3M university in which we are designing printable robots. Here, we have together all the pieces that form this robot, but you can have a look at the different parts pages to see some other people modifications -specially at the links. Take into account that this is a work in progress.Though this robot works as it is designed now, it can be improved a lot -and this is in what we are working right now. Some of the pieces -in their own pages- are parametrized, while others are still pending. Designers: Olalla Bravo thingiverse.com/olalla Daniel Gómez thingiverse.com/dannynoc A special thank you to Obijuan thingiverse.com/obijuan for printing us the pieces, providing useful advice and remarking us some obvious design mistakes and, in general, leading us into the nerdy way =p . Another thank you also to our other professor Alberto, for his advice,patience and invitations to have some coffee. Individual pages for the pieces: Gear wheels and links: thingiverse.com/thing:7209 Chassis: thingiverse.com/thing:7681 Parametric gear wheels: thingiverse.com/thing:7794 UPDATE: We've got a video of the robot in motion!!youtu.be/gRsKRrQQHos Update 4/13 23:52 The chassis now includes four drills in order to hold the PIC with the micro that controls the servos above the chassis. Also, the hole that it had so that some material could be saved has been removed in order to sustain better the PIC. Update 4/14 14:08 Added the parametric version of the gear wheels that we are using in the design. Update 4/20 00:28 The comments of the links scad file have been translated into English. I hope this will help to understand better the code and that it will make easier modifications of the file.

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