MakerBot Industries

Posting about the Light It Up Blue logo design yesterday got me thinking: what if I did want to print out four or five of these at a time? What if I were a teacher and wanted to modify and multiply this awesome badge for a Wild West unit with my students?

As it happens, my colleagues in Support have just today published a new tutorial addressing this exact question. It’s a quick read, and you can find out how to divide your build platform for a designated number of copies of your object. So you can have two three headed tigers, or three four leaf clovers, or four five fingered salutes.

Speaking of tutorials, the Support team wants to hear from you. What tutorial would you really like to see? Is there something you’ve had to teach yourself that you think we could cover with a good how-to? Let us know! Comment below, or submit your ideas to support@makerbot.com at any time.

Now, go forth and multiply!

Three Headed Tiger by pardasaniman

Like the title says! Be warned though, it's my first time editing a mesh in Blender and has a few rough spots.

This thing brought to you by

Clover Shaped Shotglass by Boort

Created a couple of Shot glasses with the profile of a 4 leaf clover to Celebrate St. Patricks Day. One has a twist and a rim, the other is a straight extrusion.

This thing brought to you by

Fist Sculpture by nathan

another successful 3d scan. I took a plaster cast of my hand and through using my3dscanner.com came out with a decent mesh. My real break-though on this project was using meshlab to re-sample the mesh making it much more uniform and achieving a nice manifold

This thing brought to you by

If you haven’t done so already, be sure to reserve your spot at tomorrow’s MakerBot User Group New York! We’ve added a few seats to the event and want everyone who is interested to be there — but we need to see that RSVP!

Chocolate MakerBot Bunny by cushwa

The Plan, Stan:

Community members will get to share their 3D-printed creations from the series “MakerBot vs. The Easter Bunny”! We asked you to create Easter-themed designs (uploaded to Thingiverse and tagged with “Easter”). Your imagination is the only limit on what you come up with!

Those in attendance will get some updates from MakerBot Industries, along with some instructive talks from our staff.

• Annelise, producer of MakerBot TV, will talk about collaborating on creative projects. And she’ll give us a sneak peek at a work in progress!
• Liz and Tony will show how to make molds from the things you print on your MakerBot. Like, say, an Easter Bunny.
• Colin will talk about using low melting point metals like pewter for home casting projects.
• And more!

For more details, please visit the invitation page. Looking forward to seeing everyone!

Chocolate MakerBot Bunny by cushwa

this is a cholcolate bunny with a Makerbot Logo on it's butt.

This thing brought to you by

Even though whoever published that post on Ada Lovelace thought it was Women’s History Month, it is obviously not Women’s History Month. That is in March, which almost everyone, except for that particular individual, knows.

It is, however, Autism Awareness Day. I love this beautiful design on Thingiverse from antohneoo. The puzzle piece, which could be converted for use as a night light, honors the Light It Up Blue campaign.

This is really an elegant campaign. The idea is to shine a light on autism spectrum disorders. There are some really nice pictures on the organization’s homepage of different buildings glowing in various shades of blue.

We hope our MakerBot users out there in the wild are using their 3D printers to make copies of this great design for themselves and their neighbors. Show us what you got!

Light It Up Blue by antohneeo

I generated this stl to honor those lighting it up for Autism Awareness Day. You can modify this file to work as a night light cover.lightitupblue.org

This thing brought to you by

Did you know that one of the most important figures in the history of computing was a woman?

Last month was Women’s History Month, but there’s never a bad time to celebrate the incredible Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron. The Wikipedia page devoted to this 19th century wonder woman has more than can be captured in a blog post, but here are some highlights. Keep in mind that left her impressive mark on the world before her untimely death at 36.

Here’s the skinny:

– In 1822, Charles Babbage begins conceptualizing a “difference engine,” a machine intended to compute values of polynomial functions. The engine is never built.

– After abandoning the difference engine, Babbage began work on the “analytical engine,” the first general-purpose computer that can be considered Turing-complete. The machine is never built.

– From 1842-43, Ada Lovelace, a well-lettered young mathematician, translated Luigi Menabrea’s work on Babbage’s Analytical Engine, adding in turn her own extensive notes.

– Lovelace’s notes included a demonstration of how the Engine could be used to produce a sequence of Bernoulli numbers. This demonstration is now widely considered the world’s first computer program.

The painter William Bewick was so impressed with Ms. Lovelace that he compared her to the “extraordinary genius” of her father, Lord Byron.

Crutch Tip by Darthcarter

I sprained my ankle on Friday and have a bright and shiny pair of crutches to show for my troubles.  After combing through Thingiverse, I was able to find only one crutch accessory – Darthcarter’s crutch tip featured above.

Thus, I propose an OpenSCAD design challenge – please create for me some accessories for my crutches.  They can be anything at all – perhaps an attachment for crutches that would give it a gripper claw extension, maybe a hook for holding the crutches up on a wall when not in use, or perhaps a clip for holding the two crutches together when I set them down.  This is my first time using crutches, so I’m sure there are a million little improvements for them.

9000 MakerBlock-backed certified internet points to the first person to design some kind of a crutch accessory or improvement in OpenSCAD and upload it to Thingiverse.¹  9000 additional MakerBlock-backed certified internet points to the most practical crutch accessory or improvement.  Please tag your Thing with “makercrutch” so that I can find them!

FYI, this is my challenge alone and not from MakerBot Industries.  I am the only source of MakerBlock backed certified internet points and imaginary currency.

1. One of the reasons I’m making this an OpenSCAD challenge is that I can’t hobble around my workroom looking for my calipers in order to measure my crutches! [↩]

Another Monday, another episode!

Today on MakerBot TV I’ll show you some of the ways that folks have personalized, customized and accessorized their MakerBots and hopefully get you inspired to turn your MakerBot into your very own work of art!

Nickel Stand for Role Playing Portraits by Gilgamesh82

I just love this printable plastic stand for role playing portraits by Gilgamesh82. ¹  Given that the pieces are plastic and paper, the idea of using a nickel for weight is a really great innovation.

With just a regular black-and-white 2D printer, a nickel, and a little bit of plastic you can have a really amazing functional game piece for just about any kind of game.  Why play Clue with boring pieces?  Why play Candyland with some generic looking figures?  Why not include pictures of the players themselves?

Nickel Stand for role playing portraits by Gilgamesh82

Print out 1x2 portraits of characters or monsters and snap them into these re-usable stands and use them instead of minis for pen and paper role playing! There is a nickel snapped into the base to give it weight.

This thing brought to you by

1. It reminds me of the cardboard creature feet featured on this blog a few months ago. [↩]

A quick calendar update for any NoVA residents: Reverse Space, a makerspace in Herndon, Virginia, posted yesterday that their new MakerBot Replicator is online and ready to roll!

The space has invited community members to come hang out with the Replicator on Thursday, April 5.

If you’re not a member of Reverse Space, you might want to consider it. Unless the policy has changed, it looks like membership is currently free and due-less. The space boasts a bunch of maker tools, but also a foosball table and a mini-fridge.

In the interest of sharing best practices, MakerBot highly recommends stocking that fridge with energy drinks that may or may not give you wings.

Reverse Space is located at:
13505 Dulles Technology Drive #3
Herndon, Virginia 20171

I’ve been keeping my eye on these guys down in Santiago, Chile, who will be opening their new STGO MakerSpace with a MakerBot Replicator, a Thing-O-Matic, and a Cupcake CNC (#502!) — or, as they put it, “the whole evolution of the 3D printing revolution!”

Today we find out that “The eagle has landed!” The Replicator we shipped has arrived in California and will shortly be on its way to its new home in Chile.

We simply can’t wait to hear more details about what looks like a beautiful space. It’s founders, Tiburcio de la Carcova and Macarena Pola, have thrown up some nice pictures on their blog and even a floorplan for how the tools will be arranged.

Let us know when you get started!

Hey, Seattleites! Still running on the joy of that Mariners win in Tokyo? Well take that party over to the Metrix Create:Space tonight! 

Three of our team will be hanging out tonight, and you better believe they’re bringing the essentials with them: Replicators and free drinks.

Go play with a MakerBot and other tools at Metrix. They’ve got a laser cutter and a soldering room and a bunch of other stuff. Go see what they’re all about and meet our guys!

details details details
Metrix Create:Space
http://metrixcreatespace.com/
623A Broadway East
Seattle, WA 98102
(206)357-9406

MakerBot staff will be there from 8:30 pm until they crash from jetlag.

Enjoy!

UPDATE! MakerBot Industries will not be giving away free Replicators, as the earlier version of this post could have implied.