Almost two and a half years ago, Wade Bortz (aka Wade on Thingiverse) uploaded a machine titled Wade’s Geared Nema 17 Extruder. Here is the simple one-line description:

A printed spur gear driven extruder for Mendel or Darwin.

This is one of only two things Wade has uploaded to Thingiverse, but sometimes it’s quality, not quantity. Take a look at the graph below — made by mad data scientist tbuser — that shows  all the derivatives this single upload has sparked.

The yellow circle in the center is Wade, and the two blue dots are each of his uploads. The other Thing, a Projector Ceiling Mount, was derived just once and the family tree stops there. But the Wade Extruder sparked 17 derivatives, which in turn sparked derivatives of their own, etc.

If this Thing were a person, it would have 17 children, 8 grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren, 14 great-great-grandchildren, and 1 great-great-great-grandchild. And since each of these things can have “copies”, which aren’t shown in the graph, there are a bunch of clones floating around out there, too.

This is a big, happy Thing family, and it all came from one person sharing a good idea.

Sharing is caring.

Thank you to all of you who joined us for the April 3rd, standing-room-only MUGNY event. Great start to MUGNY’s 2012 season!

MUGNY might be the “flagship” MUG given its proximity to MakerBot HQ, but this particular event was something of a special case. I assembled a heavy-hitter list of MakerBot colleagues to each deliver a short talk on frequently requested topics. Future MUGNY editions will focus on show-and-tell directed by community members, along with a sprinkling of A-list superstar keynotes.¹

I am following (cue the TV mad scientist hand-rubbing) a secret plan: the plan to generate a number of great talks and tech demos that can be later transposed into full-out tutorials on MakerBot.com to share with our community — so that all of the MUGs can benefit. Those physically able to visit weren’t the only ones attending — despite our same-day notice, we had at least seventy-five visitors via the event’s livestream, chatting with MakerBot blogger Andrew while following the proceedings. And this is just a piece of the MUG-to-MUG exchange that will become possible as more MUGs come online and swap activities with each other. So keep your eyes on this space — I’ll be blogging about these tutorials as we post them. I encourage MUGs to give these tutorials a try at their own events.

Across the planet, dozens and dozens of MUGs have been forming to bring MakerBot Operators together regularly to share prints, models, stories, and (frequently) pizza. Are you on the hunt for fellow MakerBot Operators to meet with in your area? Or maybe you have a group and you’d like to tell us about it? In either case, drop us a message to mug at makerbot dot com and I’ll be happy to follow up with you.

Wanna check out the run down for the night? Click the “read more” link below for the Techniques Swap summary!

Read the rest of this entry »

1. I have lined up some really outstanding contributors for the upcoming season! [↩]

Bre talks to BoingBoing about the community-created clock he demoed at TED 2012. 

Earlier this week, Bre and 24 of his fellow-TED-Fellows inspired and delighted attendees of the TED Conference 2012, where the world’s boldest and brightest gathered in Long Beach, California. “This year–there’s a spirit of solutions in the air,” wrote Forbes’ Steven Rosenbaum, who listed Bre’s talk on the power of collaborative innovation as one of four ‘earthshaking’ moments from this year’s event.

“We may really be printing out everything we need in the future,” gushed Mariella Moon of Tecca. Moon’s list of 11 Radical Ideas Worth Spreading From Ted 2012 also includes autonomous flying robots, electronic toy kits, a brain recording kit, and a ‘clip from TED2023′  imagined by Ridley Scott in the much-anticipated Prometheus.

Finally, GOOD: education asks, If Schools Kill Creativity, Can Toys Bring it Back to Life? Heck yeah! Here at MakerBot, we’re firm believers in the learning power of play-time. Give a kid a Replicator, and she can make the stuff of her imagination come to life. She can learn science, mechanics, and problem-solving while creating awesome toys of her own invention. Most importantly, she can discover  that nothing is impossible – all she needs is her mind, her MakerBot, and a little help from her friends.

It’s time for TED2012!  MakerBot’s CEO and co-founder, Bre Pettis, is among the TEDFellows speaking at the conference in Long Beach, California this week.

Bre’s talk today focused on the importance of  community and co-creation in making something that seems impossible, possible. Case in point:  the open-source collaborative design phenomenon where 3D printed clocks were developed collectively  by MakerBot’s Thingiverse users. Remember the Clock-a-Thons? Well kids, we successfully made a clock!

Thingiverse users from around the world began uploading their designs for the pieces of a clock, and the final stages of construction happened here in MakerBot’s Brooklyn workshop, with clock mastermind, Syvwlch himself in attendance, over a meeting of minds and some shared food.

Want to make a clock of your own? Download the files from Thingiverse, get your bot warmed up, and start printing! The clock does have a few necessary non-printable parts, but fear not – MakerBot is selling these parts in our online store! In the kit, you’ll even get a laser cut wooden shelf stand signed by Bre Pettis himself!

For the inside scoop from TED2012 follow Bre on Twitter – @bre!

OpenSCAD polygon editor (single HTML file) by Daid

As much as I enjoy using OpenSCAD to create 3D models, I do everything I can to build objects out of cylinders, spheres, and cubes.  Making a polygon is… challenging.  Thankfully, there are a number of people on Thingiverse who have sought to make building polygons in OpenSCAD much less painful.¹  The latest OpenSCAD polygon tool by Daid is simple, intuitive, and a shining example of why open source projects are awesome.

As soon as I tried out Daid’s program, I knew it was great.  Quickly drafting a complex polygon would now be a breeze.  However, being able to upload and trace a picture of an object would make it infinitely more useful.  Within a few hours, Daid had responded to my feature request² and within a single day Thingiverse citizen PieterBos had incorporated this feature into his own OpenSCAD polygon program.  Less than a day after that Daid added the ability to upload traceable images to his own original program.  All of this, the sharing of ideas for features, pushing and encouraging one another to be more awesome… this is what open source collaboration is about.

So, when’s the last time a proprietary closed source program developer knocked out a new feature you requested in three days?  Open source FTW!

Untitled by Daid

This thing brought to you by

Untitled by PieterBos

This thing brought to you by

1. Dang, the new awesome Thingiverse search features sure is awesome…  Thanks Marty! [↩]
2. For the ability to upload an image for tracing [↩]

Working Together to Push and Shove

Thingiverse has become a hopping place with mashups, derivatives, and collaborations galore of late. ^1 2  In particular, Pattywac’s recent team design challenge has prompted several groups to work together on some pretty cool projects.

As an online-community Thingiverse is a place for sharing ideas and digital objects.  It has also come to be a place for collaboration.  If you don’t live near a hackerspace or have access to sophisticated tools, you can always ask for help or feedback on Thingiverse.  Even if you don’t have a 3D printer, a lasercutter, or even tools – you can probably still fire up OpenSCAD, start working on a project, and see your imagination realized.

If you’ve got access to a computer and an internet connection there’s no reason to wait.  You can start making things right now with the help of people all around the world.  What are you waiting for?

1. Photo courtesy of Solo [↩]
2. Special thanks to Schmarty for introducing me to the “Terrible Secret of Space” meme. [↩]