Yesterday’s New York Times had an interesting piece about a group of people in Amsterdam who help people fix things instead of throw them out; like an old iron that doesn’t steam or a skirt with a hole in it.

Founder of the Repair Cafe, Martine Postma:

“In Europe, we throw out so many things,” said Martine Postma, a former journalist who came up with the concept after the birth of her second child led her to think more about the environment. “It’s a shame, because the things we throw away are usually not that broken. There are more and more people in the world, and we can’t keep handling things the way we do.”

Exactly! This is how Makers see the world. Sure, something breaks, but that doesn’t mean it’s ready for the trash can. Look at all the things that have been saved with the mindset that Ms. Postma talks about:

 

Thingiverse user Renosis saved a family member’s beloved wrist watch by making a replacement for the lost battery cover. He wrote, “I don’t expect anyone has the same watch and if they do, I wouldn’t expect that they lost the back to it. This is more of a proof of concept. I wanted to post it because I was so amazed that it worked and hopefully, it will inspire someone else to use this temporary fix one day if their watch breaks.”

 

rbckman made a replacement lock mechanism for his buddy’s dishwasher. The manufacturer of the dishwasher wasn’t shipping that part anymore, so they either had to fix it with a custom part or throw out the dishwasher. The choice is clear!

 

 

 

lazlo‘s blender broke, and the solution was to simply make a new gear. Why throw out an almost perfectly good blender? Good as new.

 

 

 

The other day, Brendan Dawes saved a mop from going to the garbage by just making a couple new clips.

 

 

 

 

 

Annelise talked about her own fix to the drain plug in her kitchen sink. If you don’t have a handle to remove that plug, it’s gotta go. That handle broke, so she just made a new one, and avoided a trip to Home Depot.

 

Even better: these are all available for free for anyone! Sometimes people wonder, “why should I make more stuff out of plastic?” But a lot of times it’s more about the waste you’re not creating by keeping old things in good condition!

What have you revitalized with a MakerBot?

 

There’s one week left to sign up for our third class in the “How to MakerBot” series at Tekserve in Manhattan. Liz Arum, our education specialist, will be leading the class.

This class is focused on the program modeling program Blender. In order to participate, those attending the class should take some time to download the following programs before class:

• ReplicatorG
• Blender
• MeshLab
• KinectToStl
• NetFabb

 

And then you should bring that computer, a 3-button mouse, and a desire to learn some awesome stuff about 3D modeling and MakerBotting!

RSVP now to reserve your spot! You can view the invitation here.

Tekserve – Seminar Room
119 W 23rd Street
NY, NY 10011
212-929-3645

Thursday, May 10; 6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

 

Thingiverse just featured this incredible MakerBotted model of a root structure. Thingiverse user TSDF used the iPad app iDough to model the shape above. I can’t explain the coolness any better than he did.

25 years after art school, 22 years after learning CAD, and 10 years after learning gcode, I would have never conceived that it would be possible to model complex organic geometry on a handheld device and hold a physical output in my hand 90 minutes later at such a low cost.

The app is $6.99 but holy moly does this look well worth it. It has brushes to “push, pull, smooth, move, pinch, spread, [and] flatten” your virtual clay. You can export your .obj from the app (email it from your iPad to your computer, says TSDF), and convert to an .stl in Netfab.

Here’s the final printed part:

 

Mother’s Day: Say It With Flowers

Mother’s Day is fast approaching and MakerBot wants you to say it with flowers — 3D printed flowers!

Mother Nature has decorated our planet with an endless variety of flowers, trees, ferns, and vines. Let’s model some original, printable flowers for the awesome Mamas in our lives– maybe even some that can sing, dance, or squirt water in her face — and share them on Thingiverse.com!

We’ve asked our own Mothers to *pick* their favorites, so c’mon, MakerBotters! Let’s make ‘em proud.  Read the rest of this entry »

From Fabbaloo:

Autodesk is previewing its Inventor Fusion software, which “unites direct and parametric workflows within a single digital model created in Autodesk Inventor.”

Here are the updates touted in the press release:

Surfacing support! Users can now work seamlessly between solids and surfaces, expanding their confidence and capabilities to tackle design changes. By enhancing the existing translators to read surface data and adding new Parasolid, Rhino, IGES and AliasDesign .wire file import capabilities user have access to an even larger number of design formats.
Simplification wizard. Simulation users now have one button simplification of designs. This makes simplifying common geometry fast and easy and ensures that mesh and solves times are as fast as possible.
Ease of use improvements. New marking menus, sketch ease of use and modeling ease of use, make this release of Inventor Fusion the easiest to use yet. Did we mention it was easy?

Well that sounds fun. I downloaded Inventor Fusion for myself, and there’s just a brief questionnaire to fill out beforehand. If you’re looking for a great 3D modeling option, give it a try. But act now, since the previews will expire.

– The Microsoft Windows compatible technology preview executable expires on April 1, 2013.
– The Apple OS X compatible version of the technology preview expires on January 1, 2013.

Hey Mac users, see that? You can use this Autodesk program!

 

I’ve blogged about Matt Compeau before, the guy making the coral-like prints on his Replicator (speaking of, maybe someone should print this and put it in an aquarium, as my colleague MakerBlock suggested).

His latest post at Emergent Forms shows us how he delivered a “randomized” ceiling for a client.

The piece above was printed, presumably on The Replicator, to show how the same section of segmented wood baffles would piece together to give a random looking solution. Each of these represents a 2′x8′ portion of ceiling, and Matt shows how those sections themselves are laid out in a way that will maximize the look of randomness.

Go to the original post to play with the web-based tool he devised to demonstrate the process to the client. Fun stuff.

This post reminds me of Kacie Hultgren, aka PrettySmallThings, in that she and Matt both use their MakerBot Replicators and/or TOM’s to demonstrate final products to clients. Did you see Kacie’s post over the weekend about how to work in scale? It was the first in a series that she’s put together for us, and the next one is pretty tops, too. Look for that on Friday.

Do you use MakerBotted scale models to communicate your ideas? Tell me about it.

 

The recent news of a process for creating balloons of any shape using 3D printed molds and sophisticated balloon deflating modelling, reminded me of two really cool ways for creating paper models.

First is TreeMaker by Robert Lang, an engineer and world-renowned origami master.  Lang’s free and open source program lets the user specify the number and ratio of major “flaps” and it designs a base that should collapse into a model with that number and ratio of flaps.  When folding an octopus, one uses a base with 9 flaps – 8 equal flaps for the eight legs and 1 shorter flap that forms the head.  A giraffe would probably use five really long flaps (for the legs and neck) and one very short one (for the tail).

The second is a type of software that assists with creating papercraft models by exploding a 3D model into a flat pattern that, when cut out and assembled using glue and tabs, would create a physical paper version of the 3D model.  There are several different programs that do this, but I’m not aware of any that are free or open source. ¹

If you know of any versions that are either free or open source – please share!

1. The wikipedia article provides several suggestions and links if you’re interested. [↩]

There was a really nice set of responses to a post last week about sketching. Basically, I asked whether blog readers and MakerBot operators were accustomed to sketching their designs from the very beginning or using CAD tools to 3D model a design from the get go.

I just thought the responses deserved a quick recap, especially because they underscore the point that there is no right answer. As someone who jumped into this company with no background in 3D printing or any other hardware hacking, I have been continually surprised how accessible the concepts are. I think it’s nice to point out that those of you who do such great work all also have varying processes — so the results aren’t just individualized, the process is too.

The star of today’s episode of MakerBot TV, Kacie Hultgren (aka PrettySmallThings), said that the sketching stage is often absent from her work; not because she eschews pencil and paper, but because much of what she does comes from photographs. It’s pre-sketched, in a way.

Emmett, whose Things number among the most notable contributions in the Thingiverse, similarly doesn’t sketch much. But in his case, it’s because his “imagination works in 3D already.” Communicating an idea to someone else, however, deserves a sketch. Renee  not only sketches, but cleans that sketch up in Illustrator before bringing it into a modeling environment.

The creator of MakerBot mascot R.Maker (pictured above), ErikJDurwoodII, said he sketches to lend some purpose to the CAD process, even if that sketch will change over time, and Gregg Wygonik also uses sketching to make sure the computer phase doesn’t include avoidable elements that cause discouragement. (Visit Gregg’s Thingiverse page here.)

Stephen Holmes, who writes for Develop3D, pinged us on twitter with a really relevant article showing yet another mindset: 3D sketching. The people at the UK product design consultancy 3form Design (3fD) do specifically leave pencil and paper sketching out of their process. Founder Austen Miller argues that the “reverse engineering” required to take a designers sketch on paper into the domain of the engineer can cause the loss of original design intentions. Instead, the groups designers start in SolidWorks.

Echoing what our commenters said:

Miller doesn’t succumb to the argument that by jumping straight into CAD stifles creativity. In his opinion, just like pen and paper, CAD is a tool and depends whose hand it’s in as to the end result. “Creativity should not be measured by the medium we choose but how successful we can be with it…”

Thanks, all, for the input!

 

Remain calm. This is just a video of adorable, 3D-modeling-and-3D-printing-savvy children designing a pendant in Tinkercad and printing it on a MakerBot Replicator. While surrounded by copies of Arduino Cookbook. So I suppose the phrase Happy Monday means something now.

For more videos from Osamu Iwasaki’s, which pretty much run the gamut of everything, here’s his website.

 

NY Daily News has a great profile today about an Iraqi War veteran, Purple Heart recipient, and New York City College of Technology Class of 2012 Valedictorian.

Let’s add one more to the list: MakerBot aficionado.

Richard Fisher will graduate on June 4th with the honor mentioned above, but his path to that degree wasn’t so direct. As The Daily News piece points out, Richard was a “terrible student in high school who got serious about academics after his brush with death during military service in the [Iraq] War.” He never told me about that last part; only that he had served four-and-a-half years on active duty in the US Navy, and two-and-a-half in the Reserves. He has a two-week active duty stint on schedule before graduation.

Richard’s story jumped out at me not just because he is a cool example of a MakerBot operator — more on that in a second. What’s awesome here is how an uninspired high schooler turned his non-academic predilection for Making into an academic career of inspiring others.

During the Fall of 2011 and into the Spring of this year, Richard was a student teacher at I.S. 318, where his primary focus was a 6th Grade shop class. This was Richard’s first exposure to MakerBot, and 3D printing in general. The shop classroom had two MakerBot Thing-O-Matics, which Richard and his cooperating teacher Russ Holstein used as the centerpiece of a sustainability project. Richard told his students to develop a sustainable building, model it, and fill it with models of sustainable furniture.

This was really no small feat. Many “of the concepts associated with design and modeling are a bit abstract which presents a challenge when teaching children that young (11 and 12 years old),” Richard said. But the challenge didn’t deter the kids, it excited them. “Maybe it is their young age, but the [MakerBot Thing-O-Matic] was unanimously voted ‘AWESOME.’ Whenever they saw the light turn on in the printer or heard it start buzzing, everyone wanted to know what was being printed. What is it? How does it work? How long does it take?”

I asked Richard whether the boys or the girls took to the technology better, and he said there was really no difference.  And once they got going, the kids “dove right in. We really pushed them beyond what a 12 year old would normally be expected to do. I think that their ability to rise to the occasion was what I found most impressive. That taught me an important lesson: If you give [kids] the tools they need and push them to do more, with the right motivation, they will deliver.”

There’s a nice end to this story. Along the way, Richard started submitting his own furniture designs to a contest at 3DTin.com. Once the kids took notice of what he was posting, they voted for his designs, and Richard came out the winner. We blogged about this at the time without knowing any of Richard’s back story, and were excited then to award him a MakerBot Replicator for his first place finish in the contest. Now we’re even more excited: the guy who has already put his life on the line in the military now plans to donate his Replicator to whichever school he ends up at for his first permanent teaching job.

Why is the Replicator a good fit for the classroom? Because they’re portable and inexpensive; perfect for the classroom, he says. But there’s more to it. As the brother of a technology teacher and a budding one himself, Richard told me there is “so much more” to teaching technology than just computers. “It drives me crazy to hear the words ‘technology’ and ‘computers’ used interchangeably.”

We’re thrilled Richard’s future students will get a chance to engage with concepts of open source hardware, rapid prototyping, and personal fabrication. We couldn’t hope for a better ambassador!