MakerBot Industries

Now that the days are growing shorter and the wind grows chilly, it’s normal for a young man’s thoughts to turn to…buckyballs.  And now, thanks to the dedicated work of pmoews, we have not only some lovely, printable .stls but also some lovely, parametric OpenSCAD models to generate as many different fullerenes as you could possibly imagine!

So, as the seasons change, you can start off your week printing the Dymaxion molecule!

Buckyballs - Molecular Models by pmoews

Here's a simple molecular modeling program written in OPENscad. It's a derivative of the OPENscad program in "Protein Models". It contains two modules, "atom" and "bond". A call to atom makes a sphere and a call to bond makes a cylinder. Atom requires a radius and a set of atomic coordinates; bond requires two sets of atomic coordinates. For example to make a water molecule we could write: atom (.3, 0, 0, 0); // an Oxygen at the origin, .3 for its radius atom (.25, -.96, 0, 0); // for the first H atom, .25 for its radius atom (.25, .24, .93, 0); // for the second H atom bond (0,0,0,-.96,0,0); // for the first O-H bond bond (0,0,0,.24,.93.0); // for the second o-H bond To render it all together the above commands are included within a union statement. More details in makewater.scad. Once I had this program I began looking for coordinates of interesting molecules to print. I found a collection of fullerenes at ccl.net/cca/data/fullerenes/index.shtml Better known as "Buckyballs" you can read about the fullerenes on Wikipedia. The buckyball most discussed contains 60 carbon atoms but the coordinate collection has a range of sizes, from 20 to 540 atms.

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Printable Parametric Pirate Ship by MakerBlock

SuperAmi’s parametric pirate hook reminded me that I’ve been wanting a printable pirate ship for a while.  My first attempt, designed in Sketchup, leaves a lot to be desired.  This time, I wanted something of which I could really be proud.  My designs use just cubes, cylinders, union, difference, intersection, translate, rotate, scale, and modules.  Since I’ve documented the sum total of all of my OpenSCAD knowledge in this blog, if you’ve followed along with tutorial series you should be able to design your own pirate ship too!  Thingiverse has a lot of rocket ships and space ships, but very few ship ships.  I’d like your help in changing this.

The challenge for you is as follows:

• Design a pirate ship using OpenSCAD.
• Upload an STL and OpenSCAD design file to Thingiverse.
• Tag your design with “openscad pirate ship“.  Please also tag your design with “pirate ship” and “OpenSCAD,” to make it easier for others to find your designs in the future.

Eternal glory, the admiration of the citizens of Thingiverse, and 9,000 internet points await:

• The first person to print an OpenSCAD pirate ship and post a picture of their print to Thingiverse
• The first person to upload an OpenSCAD pirate ship
• Any person who uploads an OpenSCAD pirate ship with additional details such as cannons, bowsprit, plank, rowboats, portholes
• The first person to design, upload as a single STL, and print an OpenSCAD pirate ship inside an OpenSCAD Klein bottle

OpenSCAD Pirate Ship by MakerBlock

A printable OpenSCAD pirate ship. While it will definitely require support for the bow, the rest of the model should not. The OpenSCAD code isn't commented at all, so it may be difficult to follow. There are two main parameters - "shipscale" and "th." The first parameter "shipscale" is the size the entire ship is based on. It roughly corresponds to the overall height of the model. The second parameter "th" refers to the thickness of many of the features. The STL below has the thickness set to 0.6mm. It should probably be about 1mm or so for optimal printability. This ship features three masts with three sails each, a rudder, deck, captain's quarters, bow, and crow's nest. As an FYI, this pirate ship was made with just "cubes" and "cylinders."

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MakerBot took New York Comic Con by storm last week! Amidst the costumed superheroes, anime characters, and vampires, stood the Thing-O-Matic — the only real robot at New York Comic Con!

See the action for yourself in the above clip from G4′s Attack of the Show. Jason Mewes (aka Jay of Jay and Silent Bob fame) stopped by the booth and talked to MakerBot’s Keith Ozar who showed off some our favorite printed objects.

Lots of awesome folks in costumes stopped by the booth (shared with the badass guys at MetalMachine), but these two dudes dressed as the Super Mario Bros. were out favorite. Of course they had to pose with the turtle shell racers…

We also got a nice shout out from the adafruit blog who said “It’s incredibly smart of MakerBot to have a booth at the Comic-Con, this type of out reach to comic community is how we’ll collectively add more makers to the DIY movement. It’s also good for business – nice work!” Photo by Cory Doctorow.

At the heart of the MakerBot Workshop bustles a very special cluster of machines — a ring of fifteen to twentyMakerBots(3D printers) called the BotFarm. These machines are each tuned to fabricate a tremendous array of objects, seven days a week — projects like artwork for Laurie Anderson, covers for Time Out New York, window displays for the New Museum, props for the Colbert Report, cutting edge DIY toys for our distributors, secret machines for our collaborators, and 3D printed robot mascots for video production.  The MakerBot Workshop Technician is responsible for keeping the BotFarm functioning productively, while wrangling the many print projects that must be completed.

While we prefer to work with current MakerBot Operators with prior experience operating MakerBots, we welcome anyone who can make a case for experience repairing, operating, maintaining, and optimizing other equipment: DIY projects, carpentry, RC cars/planes/quadrocopters, robotics, puppetry, stopmotion animation, fine art presses, motion picture cameras, photo printing, silkscreening, industrial machinery, packaging machines, for example. What machines do you love working with and how have you kept them humming along in perfect working order?

Check out our job description for further details!

No phone calls, please. Please submit your resume, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile to hiring (at) makerbot.com.

That’s right kids!  The glow is back in 3 mm, and, is now available for the first time in 1.75 mm!!

If you’re like us, you love using your MakerBot for decoration, and this is the sine qua non for all your Halloween-related prints.  Why print a ghost when you can print a glowing ghost?  Or isn’t a glowing skull better than one that, you know, doesn’t glow?  And best of all, now you can print glowing objects with your Stepstruder® MK7!

We are seriously excited that this shipment is here in time to get it to you by Halloween — grab it now and have the scariest, glowiest Halloween party on your block!

Are you up for this?

Are there individuals reading this who can look on undaunted, and then make a plan to resolve it calmly and without fear?  If this sounds like you, we’re still looking for Support Agents to work with us in our amazing new Boerum Hill space, the “BotLair.”

To work for support is to be right in the thick of all that is MakerBot — if you find 3d printing exciting, this is the place for you.  Send your resume today — that is, if you’ve got what it takes.

Just a reminder that there are only 12 days left to enter the New Museum MakerBot challenge!

Ever wished you had a device or object that doesn’t really exist? Ever used something like a bottle opener or door handle and thought you can make it better? Now is your chance, you can win a Thing-O-Matic and be featured in the New Museum Store! Now is your chance to show off your skills as a designer!

Have a look at some of the best submissions, and then get to work — only 12 days left!

Toggles by larsie

But that day shall not be today, thanks to larsie for his son’s shoelace toggles.

Hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution, billions of dollars in the footware industry, and using small ropes to lash bits of leather and rubber to our feet is the best we could come up with?  Tying knots in shoelaces has got to be one of the most ridiculous activities in the world.  It’s difficult to learn as a child,¹ the laces always come undone at inconvenient times, you can trip on them when they do, and you never notice until its too late.  Thankfully I don’t remember the days when I was frustrated with the vagaries and inefficiencies that are shoelaces. ²

Can you imagine putting yourself in larsie’s son’s place? ³  The poor guy was so frustrated with tying his shoes that he didn’t want to wear them on the way to kindergarten!  Thus, today’s MakerBot hero is larsie for leaping into action and realizing he could design and print spring-operated toggles so quickly he could get his child to school on time!

Toggles by larsie

My son is not very good at tying his shoe laces, so I made him this thing instead. It's basically a well known device from shoes, jackets etc, that are apparently called toggles (thanks). It could be redesigned in all sorts of ways, maybe even showing a head or some other object. This was made quite quickly, since he didn't want to wear his shoes on the way to kinder garten. :-) I have made another version and have added the STL files for this also. It's called toggles.stl. This one is smaller and has a slightly different shape.

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1. Wait, wait, wait…  the bunny hops where?  Why?  What did he see?  Why didn’t he go the other way around??? [↩]
2. But, mom, why CAN’T I have velcro shoes?! [↩]
3. I had to physically restrain myself from making the obvious pun here… [↩]

The Street recently posted a story entitled “How 3-D Printing Changes Everything,” featuring an interview with MakerBot’s Bre Pettis.  Check it out!

Photo credit

Update:

There seems to be a some misunderstandings about the project. Here are some clarifications:

• The final shell material has yet to be determined; plastic is being used for prototypes
• No printed shells have been distributed in the wild
• The goal is to create a printable hermit crab shell for domestic use thus reducing harvesting of natural shells

Hermit crabs don’t make their own shells. They scavenge their homes. And now, hermit crabs are facing a housing shortage as the worldwide shell supply is decreasing. With a shell shortage, hermit crabs around the world are being forced to stick their butts into bottles, shotgun shells, and anything else they can find. This is not acceptable. As a community, we can reach out to this vulnerable species and offer our digital design skills and 3D printing capabilities and give hermit crabs another option: 3D printed shells.

Miles Lightwood, AKA TeamTeamUSA, is doing exactly that as an artist in residence here at MakerBot. His big project is Project Shellter, to provide 3D printed shells for hermit crabs the world over. We are inviting all MakerBot Operators and digital designers on Thingiverse to design shells and participate in SCIENCE!

We’ve set up a crab habitat, a crabitat, here at the Botcave in Brooklyn and Miles is setting up a crabitat in Los Angeles. We need help from the community to design shells so we can print them out and see if the hermit crabs like them. Can you design a shell that hermit crabs will like? We’ll print them out here at the botcave, put them in the crabitats and see which designs the hermit crabs will move into. Will they like ABS or PLA? Will they prefer one color over another? Will they even consider a 3D printed shell? We won’t know until we use empirical science and test it out. If you participate in the project, use the hashtag #SHELLTER on twitter so that we can all track what’s going on. You can follow Project Shellter on Facebook too!

This is a new frontier of crowdsourced science. Please design shells that you think a hermit crab would like and upload them to thingiverse and tag them with “SHELLTER.” Miles will be posting a summary of his research on design parameters for hermit crab shells next. If you design them, together we’ll do science and find a way to solve the hermit crab housing problem.

Got feedback or ideas? Drop a note in the comments.