Are you guys on Pinterest? It’s kind of awesome. It’s like virtual collage – you ‘pin’ images from the web onto themed ‘boards’ and share them with your friends – you can like, repin, and comment on images, too. It’s a great resource for finding inspiration, and it’s also a really useful tool for organizing your ideas and planning your designs.
MakerBlock issued one of his more solemn challenges yesterday when he asked the MakerBot community to iterate plasma2002‘s epic Look of Disapproval Glasses (which, by the way, are for sale here on Etsy).
Well ask and ye shall receive! Gadgetguydk saw our bet and raised us two pairs of plastic emotion. Without further ado, we give you The Angry, The Sad, and The WTF?!
Angry >:-0
Sad
What the... O.o
In accordance with the bylaws of challenges, gadgetguydk is awarded 9,000 Internet points.
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!
Nate Holl writes for Energy & Capital that 3D Printing is on track to “become the next trillion-dollar industry, facilitating the next wave of entrepreneurial enterprises and ending the primacy of large-scale manufacturing leviathans.” In other words, manufacturing is becoming personal.
“No clearer example exists of the 3D printers democratizing ability than Bre Pettis and his team of engineers,” at MakerBot.
The piece mentions some cool uses of 3D printing, especially in the medical space. And that might make you want to print this human brain model.
This is a two part version of the Human Brain by jmil
It requires no support so is easier to print and looks cool when you pull it apart front of someone.
This was one of the most tricky things I have ever printed - good luck.
If anyone with an Ultimaker fancies a challenge, print this.
It's printed with Faberdashery Pink PLA.
Kids getting a good look at a MakerBot Replicator last week at SXSW
Here’s a nice quick read for your second third cup of coffee this morning. A group of undergrads and grad students at Stanford who came together in a mechanical engineering class are using their tools and knowledge to open minds of Bay Area students.
And are you surprised to hear they use 3D printing to do the job? MFA student Eugene Korsunskiy:
Our whole point is that manipulating matter with your hands is how you get a sense of empowerment that you can change the world around you. … There’s a lot of high-level education policymakers who in theory claim to agree that the future of the country depends on a workforce that’s creative…but no one’s doing anything about it. … As [they]’re talking about how creativity needs to be expanded, shop classes are being cut…so we decided: “We are going to do something about this.”
The team lets young students design their ideas in Autodesk 123D and print them on the spot. Can you imagine what it would have been like to have that at your disposal when you were a kid? And to the point, we’re not talking about only advanced high school kids. The younger the better, it seems.
Working with sixth graders and Yahoo! executives, the team was surprised to find that the younger students were more creative.
“It’s really sad to see what happens between those ages that really squashes any semblance of fearless, creative endeavors,” Korsunskiy said.
A number of you have just received your MakerBot Replicators™! You must be incredibly excited!
Set-up for the MakerBot Replicators™ is unbelievably simple (much simpler than it was for those Thing-O-Matic kits!) and we’ve worked really hard to get you thorough documentation and instructions so that it’ll be smooth sailing from the time you receive your package to the time you’re printing your first few things from Thingiverse.
These three videos will walk you through the essential steps in only 12 minutes! We recommend watching each video in its entirety and then watching it again as you set up your Replicator, pausing when necessary. For more written documentation check out Ethan and Melody’s incredibly thorough Replicator User Guide.
And if you’re eagerly anticipating the arrival of your Replicator feel free to get a head start by watching these videos now!
#1. Unboxing
In this video Mike will take you through the initial set-up of your machine. He’ll go over essential information about attaching your Stepstrudder MK8 and properly mounting your filament.
#2. First Run Experience
In this video Ethan will assist you as you follow the instructions in the start-up script. You’ll learn how to level the platform, load filament and you’ll get to try a test print!
#3. Thingiverse to Thing
In this video Sam will get you comfortable with the printing process. He’ll show you how to pick a model from Thingiverse, run it through ReplicatorG and to get your MakerBot to make it! After you master this tutorial you’ll be able to print your world!
*BONUS* In addition to the three set-up videos we’ve also put together a Maintenance Tutorial.
In this video I will take you through applying new kapton tape, cleaning out the drive gear and lubricating the milled rods on your Replicator. Enjoy!
I thought this was an interesting question and that you, dear reader, might be interested in my response. An infill pattern for a 3D model slicer is dependent upon the external structural features of an object. All the slicers I’m aware of provide a uniform interior, so the infill pattern ends up being a similarly uniform pattern. Setting aside the mathematical differentiations between a 3D model slicer and a TSP solver, a they are very very different animals. Let’s look at a PNG of the PBM (“Portable Bit Map”) file:
R. Maker - Portable Bit Map file
Let’s suppose, for a moment, we think of a TSP drawing as a single thin slice of a 3D model. 1 When printing a 3D object, we don’t generally care about the pattern used to fill the inside of the object. 2 Once completed, we should never see the interior. But, with a TSP drawing we’re getting a LOT of information about the density of points in one spot versus another spot. Unlike a 3D object, where we don’t really care about the interior fill of a given slice, the interior of a TSP is where all the cool stuff happens. As the TSP solver figures out a reasonably efficient route to hit all of the points, it will naturally create a tighter path where points are closer together and looser paths where the points are farther apart.
And, as for the title of the post… that’s really a reference to the distinction between a 3D point cloud which can be used to create a 3D object and a 2D point “puddle” used to create a TSP drawing.
Traveling Salesman Problem - Single Line Art Series
Hit the play button on the video above for a behind the scenes look inside MakerBot Indstries courtesy of Business Insider. The crew got some great footage of Bre in the BotFarm before heading to the Botcave to see where MakerBots are built, tested, and shipped. You may even recognize some familiar faces from previous blog posts!
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!
Why honor your company’s Employee of the Month with a generic trophy when you can customize the award with their own image? Bloomberg Businessweek included this personalized Employee of the Month award in their story, “A MakerBot for the Office,” which features MakerBot user Brendan Dawes. An interactive designer and the founder of Beep Industries in Manchester, U.K., Dawes has designed a number of things for his office including cable holders, clips for attaching pens to notebooks, and a hexagonal organizer to keep his desk tidy.
For more ideas of ways to perform a MakerBot takeover on your office, check out Businessweek’s accompanying slideshow, which includes this sweet 3-D printed tie.
UPDATE: As Nudel points out in the comments below, the items featured in the BusinessWeek piece and slideshow are all designs that have been uploaded to Thingiverse. If you have a MakerBot, print at will. Thanks, Nudel!
