MakerBot Industries

You may already know that our friends at the Fayetteville Free Library launched the first ever makerspace within a public library. The “Fab Lab” includes two of our MakerBot Thing-O-Matics. If you haven’t heard, definitely read the writeup on their page. It provides a nice distinction between their lab and the larger world of makerspaces.

On Friday, FFL’s Transliteracy Development Director Lauren Britton — whose school project became what is now the Fabulous Lab at FFL — spoke at the Computers in Libraries 2012 conference in Washington, DC. Library commentator David Lee King took some quick notes on the talk, and I thought it was interesting that among her points was a pricing strategy for use of the TOM’s:

they’re using a time strategy – first 10 minutes of printing is free, then 10-15 cents a minute after that.

If you want to know more about the CIL conference, they’re hashtagging it #CILDC on twitter.

If you’re feeling a need for Replicameraderie, watch this live stream! The guys at TechShop SF are letting us in on their print!

Streaming video by Ustream

Some people use their MakerBots to print out 3D scans of their own heads. Ben Buckland, head of sales at New Zealand-based PagePulse, says he bought his specifically for a project “which required highly precise locations of pneumatic pistons.”

There are no rules!

On that note, here is sirmakesalot’s model of a 4-cylinder motor.

4 cylinder motor by sirmakesalot

You may have heard that MakerBot Industries is in an exciting expansion mode right now, and as such several of us are brand new. Last Friday that newness was the good fortune of some high school students in Baltimore.

MakerBot 3D Modeler Todd Blatt, who joined us this week, was still in his hometown on Friday. Before moving, he says he knew he had to make a special trip to his old high school, Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School. Todd brought with him the MakerBot Cupcake from the Baltimore Node Hackerspace.

This is a huge deal for us here at MakerBot Industries. We strive for a world where every high school student has access to a MakerBot to print whatever their creative minds come up with. We also know that kids see the technology and get it right away.

High school students watch as their creation is printed on a MakerBot

As Todd tells it, word of the 3D printer hanging out in classrooms spread on its own down the halls of the school. It wasn’t just a few kids in the engineering class getting their first look at this technology, it was math students, art students, and teachers from those disciplines, not to mention the Principal herself. A bunch of kids filtered through to see what the buzz was all about, and as you can see from the pictures, it was all smiles.

Incidentally, this wasn’t a surprising reaction to Todd. He first became enthralled with 3D printing when he visited Northrup Grumman on a school trip in 11th grade. Now a dozen years later, MakerBot has helped bring down the cost of these machines so much that Todd was able to bring one with him and show a bunch of students on their home turf.

The kids chose to print their design of the school initials, BT, which looks like a B from the front and a T from the side view. The second picture shows the initials set into a heart design. Clearly these guys have nothin’ but love for their alma mater.

Initials for Beth Tfiloh School in Baltimore, MD, designed by students

Yesterday we posted about the Innovative Humanitarian Products Organization, the brainchild of Auburn student Grant Moore. Today we have a bit more background to Grant’s cool story and how he’s using his MakerBot to charge ahead on some of the developing world’s problems.

During a summer internship in 2010, Grant saved up for a Cupcake CNC in order to be able to prototype various ideas. He hadn’t yet thought of a water purification system, but says the “power and flexibility that Makerbot offered caused me to search for new uses of the machine.” Grant even has a patent pending for a special ratcheting mechanism he perfected on his MakerBot.

The idea for a water purification system grew out of a recognition of the “truly staggering” water crisis worldwide. He tells me his group now has two systems.

ALPS (Advanced Liquid Purification System) and SaL (Salt and Light). Both operate on the same principle however one is powered by a hand-crank while the other is powered by a solar-cell. The technology is effective at eliminating the majority of all viruses, bacteria, and protozoa to safe levels.

Grant and his student organization IHPO, now 130 members strong, use Grant’s  MakerBot Cupcake  to print the casings for the ALPS as well as the parts for their newest “Hybrid Purifier.” They’ve even tested these systems on the ground in Uganda! You can see a short video of the casing being printed on their Facebook page by clicking the links above. He says the organization has grown into a 501(c)3 non-profit and is “working to establish strong lasting partnerships with other non-profits.”

We are so glad Grant and his colleagues have been able to use MakerBot for global good. Do you know of anyone doing similar work, or have you had ideas for a humanitarian project that you’d like to prototype on a MakerBot? We’d love to hear your stories, too!

If there is one thing we love, it’s hearing about amazing students doing great things with a MakerBot! There is a student-led organization at Auburn University using MakerBot to solve the potable water crisis in the developing world.

Our support team here in the BotLair got a service request yesterday, and after digging around, we’re intrigued. The Innovative Humanitarian Products Organization is a group born out of a project by Grant Moore, who was a student in the Business Engineering Technology program at Auburn. Grant used his Thing-o-Matic to prototype his group’s Advanced Liquid Purification System (ALPS). Apparently, having a MakerBot on hand meant he could print a box to hold all the parts of the system he envisioned. Looking at some Facebook pictures, it seems IHPO may have used their 3D printer for more parts than just the box.

Here’s a slideshow to give you some more background on the group. We’ll update more as we get additional information about this great project!

File under unexpected-but-awesome! The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research hosted a talk on the glories of additive personal manufacturing last week, and who showed up to bring home the message? That’s right, our friend the Thing-O-Matic!

Christopher Williams, assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering and DREAMS Lab Director at Virginia Tech (an IALR partner), told the crowd,

There are no more constraints…There are no more rules about what can and can’t be made.

Preach on, Dr. Williams! We’re thrilled MakerBot was part of your evening.

todbot with Cupcake #0002 and Replicator #7523

The Replicators are among us. And one way you can keep up with this unfolding story is by following the #MyMakerBot project on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, a way for MakerBot Operators to share their MakerBot Numbers and first prints with the world.

The serial on the back of our bots is not a set of random digits. Each new bot joins a continuity of unique MakerBot numbers that carry forward from the handwriting on the first CupCake, to the laser-etches on the back of The Replicator. MakerBot Operators can often be seen proclaiming their MakerBot Number with pride when their bot accomplishes a print they are excited about.

Check out maker Tod Kurt of ThingM pictured above, better known as todbot, proud owner of both the first CupCake purchased by the public, CupCake #0002, and recipient of the first Replicator shipped out from our facility, Replicator #7523. Talk about early adopter! He has been sharing images of his bot and first prints via flickr and has also introduced his new bot over to the Los Angeles-based hackerspace, Crash Space. His first set of prints is below!

Todbot's first things printed on his new MakerBot Replicator!

Getting a New MakerBot? Here’s How You Can Participate!

Claim your spot in MakerBot history by snapping a photo of yourself next to your MakerBot and upload it to MakerBot Flickr group. You don’t have to have a Replicator to play along — all MakerBots are welcome! After your photo is up on Flickr, share your photo with the rest of the world via Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook with hashtag “#MyMakerBot” and your MakerBot Number!

Once you’ve got your MakerBot calibrated, you’re going to want to start making things. We created Thingiverse.com to be a place where you can share digital designs. Scroll through the thousands of projects and consider the infinite possibilities suggested by your own design imagination — what will be the first thing you make with your MakerBot?

Take a picture of your first thing — tag it with “#MyMakerBot” so we can follow along!

Recent #MyMakerBot Photos!

Here are a few of the dozens of photos that have been going up — where is yours?

If you are in the Greater Los Angeles Area, stop by the Affordable Art Fair this weekend to catch Keith and myself as we introduce the brand new MakerBot Replicator to the West Coast!¹ The remaining hours are today until 8pm and tomorrow (Sunday) from 11am until 6pm.

We have been running “Keith It!”² versions of 3D scans of people like Laurie Anderson, Bre Pettis, Keith Ozar, Phill Niblock, and others, as well as a few other favorites such as a (newly revised v18!) Barrel of Octopi, giant chess pieces, cows, work by Micah Ganske, and others.

We have been visiting with AAF neighbors and presenters such as ArtStar.com, the filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, and the LA-based Toy Art Gallery. We are even making 3D printed versions of vinyl art toys by awesome Art Toy heroes Luke Chueh and Dave Bondi for the Toy Art Gallery staff, work the gallery hasn’t yet had the opportunity to produce.

Quite a few MakerBot Operators such as Miles Lightwood (TeamTeamUSA), Theron Trowbridge and the crew at CRASHspace, and MakerBot’s Taylor Goodman (based in LA) have spent a lot of time with us at the booth, sharing things for us to print and generally introducing us to the wonderful design and DIY community here. We are hoping that Cliff who designed Chess Set I (that we are making giant) and other Thingiverse superstars will stop in also.

At night, we have been running all over town, introducing the machine to CRASHspace, UCLA’s engineering students, galleries and museums, and other hackerspaces. We have also been printing “Keith it!” busts of a cleaned up Beethoven model at night and placing them on the Thomas Organ in the lobby of The Standard – Downtown. To date, these custom 3D printed sculptures have been either stolen or disposed of by the hotel staff within a couple of hours of appearing. But we have photos to document.

Check out our photo gallery below!

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Wanna visit for free? drop a request to griffin at makerbot dot com by 11am on Sunday and he’ll see about adding you to the list with a comp’d ticket! [↩]
2. The software engineers working on revisions of ReplicatorG for our new machines created a button called “Keith It” to created maximum-sized objects to suit the new three-times-Thing-O-Matic build volume by Keith’s request. This name will only persist if you request it… [↩]

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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