MakerBot Industries

Steampunk Couture: CNC Goggles by gianteye

Thingiverse is full of amazing creations by some amazing designers.  What I find really interesting is what people did before they had access to a 3D printer.  I used to, and still do, enjoy origami.  I know of others that built things using cardboard, others wood, others metal.

So, I’m curious – what do you make?  How do you make it?

Thingitag Jr. by whosawhatsis

Please consider this a public service announcement on the issue of tags.  There are now more than 10,000 things shared on Thingiverse, which means it’s getting more difficult to find what you might be looking for among all the other things out there.  Fortunately, Thingiverse citizens have the ability, nay – duty!, to add tags to the things they see.

So, if you’re adding something to the universe of things, please be sure to add a few tags so that a week from now they’ll be easy to find even when your designs are no longer on the front page of the Newest Things.

And, if you’re cruising around Thingiverse and find something that would benefit from an additional tag or three, please help out everyone and add those tags!  One of the best parts about tagging someone else’s Thing is that when you do, Thingiverse instantly displays the number of things that share that tag, showing you all the other awesome related things you might otherwise miss out on!

Thingitag Jr. by whosawhatsis

I was showing off some of my designs at a recent Makerbot user group meeting, and I wished I had tags for them with QR codes and some other relevant data. This bookmarklet will generate such tags. This is a smaller version, with the QR code on one side and the human-readable information on the other. Note: I initially set the license to CC-BY for the example picture because the CC licenses look a little nicer on the tags, but I've changed the license to PD, so feel free to use it however you want. Update: Some errors were reported with the DOM walking, so I rewrote those portions to use Regex instead. This should improve compatibility.

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Well folks — it’s gotten to be that time of the year.  I hope you’ve stored away enough nuts to make it through the winter.

If you haven’t, perhaps you can print out an army of these squirrels by MBCook to help you gather enough to get you through.  I suspect ABS (or PLA) squirrels don’t eat very much…but then maybe they’re not quite as quick as real squirrels either.

Whatever the case, it’s clear that you need a whole lot of plastic squirrles for a crisp fall day like this.

Squirrel by MBCook

This is a 3D model of a squirrel that I found on Aim@Shape [1]. It was uploaded by MPII and is actually under the MPII Institute License, which you can view by clicking on the download link on the things page at Aim@shape. I flattened the base and cleaned up some artifacts on the tail that I'm guessing were the result of scanning. This is the most work I've ever done on a model (I used Netfabb and Blender to clean it), so I learned a lot, and he came out very cute. My print came before I caught an error in the model, which caused the bandana looking line. It slices correctly now. [1] shapes.aimatshape.net/view.php?id=105

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Recovering from a bear attack

There are a lot of reasons for needing to 3D print things.  You broke it, it wore out, or perhaps you lost it.  But, what about…

“After the bear stipped the mirrors of my 85′ bus, trying to get in”

This is easily in the top 10 reasons for needing to print things in plastic at home.  Bear attack. ¹  Thank you to 1oldclow for his printed car mirror and this bit of wisdom.

car mirror by 1oldclown

After the bear stipped the mirrors of my 85' bus, trying to get in

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1. Just the kind of thing that would scare the hell out of Stephen Colbert [↩]

MakerBot owner, John Biehler, explains the wonders of the  Thing-O-Matic on Get Connected, our new fave Canadian tech site! Check out the video to see John show off some cool things he’s printed including a money clip, Stephen Colbert’s head and even the Get Connected logo.

MakerBot’s own Bre Pettis is the latest profile for Time.com’s Game Changer series. The crew from Time visited the MakerBot Workshop and the BotCave for a behind-the-scenes look at what we do here every day. The video also shows off some awesome objects we’ve printed recently including pliers, zaggo’s whistle, sconine’s  starfish, and the just-finished zoetrope project that artist Takeshi Murata is showing at London’s Frieze Art Fair.

Check out some of the other Game Changer profiles – Bre is in good company!

This week’s episode: MakerBoting and Art. Come along to New York’s Affordable Art Fair where painter Micah Ganske shares the development of his MakerBot-made sculptures. Then hear from 3D animator Takeshi Murata about the 3D Popeye zoetrope he is creating using MakerBot prints. And finally, get the scoop on how to WIN A THING-O-MATIC in an artistic challenge we’re doing with the New Museum.

Huge thanks to MakerBot’s very own Alan Bjorklund for the soundtrack!

MakerBot will be at the BMW Guggenheim Lab today (09/24/11)  12PM – 5PM  — free 3-D printing lessons open to the public!

http://bit.ly/ojgvfC

“Who needs to outsource manufacturing anymore? Meet the kid-friendly future of manufacturing as the cooperative team of HTINK and the folks at MakerBot Industries bring their mobile mini-manufacturing plant to the BMW Guggenheim Lab. Whether you’re a real kid or just a kid at heart, a certified techie or confused by touchscreens, you’ll have fun using MakerBot’s mini 3-D printers to make your own gizmo, thingy, or doohickey. For young people and adults.”

Dorm Doorstop by Tetnum

Tetnum and his fellow college dorm students tried every doorstop he could find to work on their doors to no avail. The commercial doorstops were too short, would slide, or just plain didn’t work.¹ The ones on Thingiverse were getting destroyed by the door closers. Undaunted, Tetnum designed and printed on his trusty MakeBot Cupcake CNC a taller gripping door stop that incorporated the school’s logo.

My cupcake has been running nonstop to make enough for my floor. the doorstops have been in use for 4 weeks and are all holding up.

I could totally see this doorstop as a must-have dorm essential for any incoming college freshman. It’s thin and can be stowed away anywhere in a small dorm room, useful for keeping the door open or from letting it swing open accidentally, and personalized for their college. In a dorm room where space is at an absolute premium, it makes sense to have a 3D printer where you can create objects on demand, rather than have to stock up on things in advance. Rock on Tetnum!

working doorstop by tetnum

In the dorms we have industrial carpet on the floors and all commercial doorstops people have or bought slid, were too short or failed. So I turned to Thingiverse and printed every door stop on here and they unfortunately they were destroyed by the door closers or did not work. So I designed a saw like door stop that was taller and did opt have any large openings to get crushed instead it has columns to direct the force to the carpet and grip tighter. I also incorporated the schools logo in to the door stop. My cupcake has been running nonstop to make enough for my floor. the doorstops have been in use for 4 weeks and are all holding up.

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1. Do you remember that super-low pile carpet from dorm rooms? [↩]

Answer: Motorized cube gears

Dougc314 has taken the gears-motif to a new level.  This would make an awesome office toy.  Just a little something to sit on the edge of your desk and slowly cycle through the rotations, forming and deforming a cube as it goes.  He was also kind enough to provide some additional instructions for making your own variations.

Or, imagine how cool it would be to modify whosawhatsis’ Eccentric Sphere Gears to be motorized, paint it to look like Earth, and then fire it up?

Motorized Cube Gears by dougc314

A motorized version of Emmetts' Cube Gears. I built it (Emmett's that is) and was showing it around work. One of my favorite collaborators (Brian C.) and I were discussing motorizing it. I had visions of a tiny motor in the center, and was fussing over battery size, etc. when Brian suggested blowing a hole through one of the big corners and connecting a drive shaft to the center to an external motor. A quick look on Ebay found a motor, and when it came in the mail I started in on the design. I designed the parts in Alibre, sorry, OpenSCAD is a very impressive tool, but I am too CAD oriented). I did import the stl of the gear into Alibre. The zip file has the Alibre files and STEP AP203 exports as well.

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