We are very pleased to announce that we have received a shipment of Rob Giseburt’s ingenious 5d shield for the Cupcake/Gen3 motherboard. If you’re not familiar with the project, have a look here or here for full details.
This is small board that adds another stepper axis to the Cupcake/Gen3 motherboard so you can more easily add a stepper-based extruder to your setup.
This community-supported project is a great way for advanced users to add new capabilities to their Cupcakes. Check it out on the store!
MakerBot conquers NYC with the cover of this week’s Time Out New York! Not only did MakerBot print the entire cover, complete with our mascot, R. Maker, taking on a mini version of New York City, but the Thing-O-Matic is featured as a gift For the Person Who Has Everything. We are also giving away a Thing-O-Matic to one lucky reader, to enter click here!
New Yorkers who want to see a real MakerBot in person, or even buy one, can visit these brick and mortar stores:
AC Gears
69 E. 8th Street (between Broadway and University)
As many of you know, the recent release of ReplicatorG has introduced some of the software features that are necessary to use your Thing-O-Matic with two extruders, a process we like to call DualStrusion.
DualStrusion is highly experimental right now, and we’re all learning about it — engineers, developers, and tech support agents included. While it’s a very exciting process, don’t expect DualStrusion to work right out of the box without some serious troubleshooting: that’s the cost of being on the cutting edge.
In light of that, we’ve just created a new support forum for DualStrusion experimenters to share their learning and experiences. And so, I give to you: the DualStrusion experimenters support forum.
I can’t say I understand exactly what’s going on here, but this is a charming and useful design for a bag clip. Who doesn’t love the double entendre about the popular electrical clip combined with the useful functionality? This is a charming design, regardless of any social media campaigns or widgets, and I salute it as such. Well done, curiousmedia!
So, does anyone else want to share a design for a functional, animal-shaped tool/mascot?
Earlier this year, videos circulated revealing prototypes of Japanese “nekomimi”1 — robotic, wearable cat costume ears that bend, twist and re-orient based on a wearer’s mood and brain activity. This impressive, if whimsical, engineering feat makes a great deal more sense within the context of the endless repetition of the motif of catgirls in Japanese manga, anime and cosplay.2 But even beyond these cultural associations, anyone who has spent time with a housecat has probably noticed the expressive qualities of cat ears.
Ever since the high-end tech demos surfaced, DIY Makers world-over have been experimenting with how to accomplish this type of project using components at least a few orders of magnitude cheaper than research-grade brain scanning equipment. In fact, MakerBot R&D staffer and anime-fan Benjamin Rockhold has a folder full of mechanical and arduino sketches to address this very chibi-awesome design challenge.3
Well, MakerBot Operator Josh DiMauro not only beat everyone to the punch, he has brought the whole project in at a price that has kickstarted an entire branch of DIY, affordable brain-mappable appendages with his MindWave Cat Ears project on Thingiverse. And he was able to accomplish his mission quickly over the course of scores of iterations thanks to his MakerBot Cupcake!
Follow below the fold for a quick interview with Josh in the wake the posting of his own tech demo video (at the head of this article). Read the rest of this entry »
combination of Japanese words for “cat” and “ears” [↩]
There are further recurrences of this image in the darker crevices of the Internets — I suggest you neglect to investigatefurther. [↩]
He is both delighted, and disappointed, that someone else got there first. [↩]
OpenSCAD (Theoretical) Rocket Science -- Don't try this at home!
Just a quick post to remind all of the members of the MakerBot Operators Group New York (MUGNY) that the second meeting of the OpenSCAD Study Group will be this Thursday in the MakerBot Workshop. I have in almost all of the homework from last month’s event — quite the success, folks! — and we plan to share it back with those who have been participating so that we can launch these tips and tricks on Thursday!
Make sure to arrive as close to 6:30pm as possible, as many of those attending will be heading right up to the NYCResistor Craft Night immediately at 8pm. The next meeting will be held the third Thursday of December: Dec 15th!
What: MUGNY OpenSCAD Study Group Meeting
When: Thursday, Nov 17th from 6:30pm-8:00pm
Where: MakerBot Workshop, 314 Dean Street, Brooklyn NY
Who: MakerBot Operators, OpenSCAD users, and their allies!
There have been rumors (well, emails and plans and such) to start Study Groups in San Francisco and possibly Seattle. If you are hosting (or hungering for) a Study Group in your area, drop us a message to griffin at MakerBot dot com and I’ll make sure to spread the word!
We’re excited to announce that we’ve started carrying Sugru in the MakerBot store. This air curing rubber is just plain fantastic! It feels like modeling clay, and you simply hand mold it into the shape you need – that’s pretty much it. It cures in under 24 hours, taking on the characteristics you expect of rubber – it’s soft, flexible, grippy, waterproof, and can withstand extreme temperatures. It’s a fantastic way to improve everyday items in your life – The first thing I did was fix my fraying laptop power cable.
But that’s just the tip of what’s exciting – it’s all about what happens when you attach Sugru to one of our favorite filaments. It turns out Sugru bonds particularly well to ABS, making the two completely inseparable buddies. Want proof? Check out the video at the bottom.
We have a lot of cool ideas for tricking out Makerbot Prints with Sugru – In fact our very own Annelise has kinda fallen in love with the possibilities, so she’s been making all sorts of fun things that we’ll show you in the next few days.
We’re also planning on hosting a Thingiverse design challenge to see what kinds of interesting uses for Sugru our talented community can come up with. I have no doubt awesome things will happen with Sugru and Makerbots. Basically Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
The New York Times addresses the issue of copyrighting physical objects on their Bits Blog, and of course, mentions MakerBot. In what they he calls Industrial Revolution 2.0, the Times’ Nick Bilton looks at the impact of 3D printing on the future of manufacturing, and on the idea of ownership in general.
Unlike music, movies, or books, printed objects typically cannot be copyrighted because they are useful items rather than simply aesthetic ones. Bilton uses the example of a coffee mug to illustrate his point. Who knows what the future holds, but for now, keep printing those coffee mugs! Trust me, I went to Ikea yesterday, and I would rather print my own mug any day than wait in that line!
It’s a Back to Fall Episode of MakerBot TV and this week we’re talking about MakerBots in schools! Find out about the educational program that Liz Arum and Jon Santiago have been putting together for teachers and students using MakerBots in their classrooms. Plus get a sneak peak into the winter stash of some MakerBotted Squirrels!
Huge thanks this week to Liz Arum, Jon Santiago, Dara Ross and her students. As well as Failotron for the music.
Check out the educational curriculum: http://curriculum.makerbot.com/
Email MakerBot’s educational team: education@makerbot.com
MakerBot Operator Justin Mijal has his Thing-O-Matic well-tuned — and has been shooting beautiful macro videos of his MakerBot in action. Check out his experiments with high-speed printing and low-layer heights!
Deck out the top floor of your Makerbot Rocket with this three piece set - it has everything you need to guide your mission to the moon.
For the steering console, chairs, and the rest of the series, check out my other things: thingiverse.com/PrettySmallThings…
We are very pleased to announce that we have received a shipment of Rob Giseburt’s ingenious 5d shield for the Cupcake/Gen3 motherboard. If you’re not familiar with the project, have a look here or here for full details.
