MakerBot Industries

Check out this book trailer for bestselling author and Internet pioneer Steven Johnson‘s The Innovator’s Cookbook (on sale October 4, 2011).  Helen Yentus, the designer of the book cover (featured in the video), worked with our team to 3D print the letters on a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic. This video documents her process from first sketch — to MakerBotting the letters — to photo shoot — to printed book. Cover photo and video are by YDESIGN.

Here are some details about the book from the video description.

The Innovator’s Cookbook is an essential book for anyone interested in innovation: the key texts on the topic from a wide range of fields as well as interviews with successful, real-world innovators, prefaced with a new essay by Johnson that draws upon his own experiences as an entrepreneur and author.

Thanks to Tony Buser who caught a glimpse of a familiar friend in the trailer for the brand new Sundance Channel series “Quirky”.¹ The show focuses on two new “citizen designers” each week — home grown inventors and designers from Quirky’s online community – who show up with a dream for product and then work with the Quirky team to realize a prototype. Catch the show to experience the entire process of taking a product from sketch to thing within a dramatically orchestrated, time-compressed window.

Ah, TV about innovation — what more could the MakerBot community want? We love in particular that Ben Kaufman, the founder of Quirky, is introduced standing next to a printing MakerBot Thing-O-Matic. Why not? We always do our best to stand next to a MakerBot when we want to draw in the crowds as well.²

1. Tony caught the show and confirmed that the Thing-O-Matic is in the series as well. [↩]
2. Great arm candy for your local Maker Faire or tech expo. [↩]

Those of you lucky enough to be in Vancouver right now attending SIGGRAPH 2011 – the world conference of computer graphics and interactivity luminaries — might have noticed that MakerBot has shown up…with a mini-BotFarm!

Make sure to drop by and say hello to MakerBot Co-Founder Adam and Distribution & Customer Support Manager Isaac!

A few weekends ago, Sheila Dharmarajan from Bloomberg’s “Innovators” series came to the Botcave for a visit — check out the great piece that resulted!

A few favorite moments:

• Sheila Dharmarajan’s lead in: “I’m about to become a plastic toy.”
• Bre’s explanation why printing a small plastic household good you know you want on your MakerBot is a heck of a lot more environmentally conscious than purchasing something off-the-shelf that travels across the world, guzzling up fossil fuels, just to sit in climate-controlled retail store waiting for you to need it.
• MakerBot Operator Chris Anderson (incidentally, also Editor-In-Chief of WIRED) talking about the Thing-O-Matic as an example of democratizing technology.

DC Fan holder by tatsuya

I was disappointed a few months back when a design I really liked had disappeared from Thingiverse.  Works in progress, unfinished designs, finished components of an unfinished design, and, yes, even bad designs all make Thingiverse a richer and more vibrant world.  In fact, finished designs are a lie.  A design can always be improved in some way. ^1 2

Even if your design doesn’t work, others can learn from it, learn from your mistakes, improve upon your designs, or become inspired to pick up where you left off.  Heck, the design that failed for you might even be perfect for a completely different application.

This is one of the reasons why I like tatsuya’s design for a DC fan holder.  After posting his design he realized that by calibrating his stepper boards, his Thing-O-Matic Z axis stepper motor wouldn’t overheat anymore. ³ If anything, he probably got even more likes and comments after he fixed his calibration issue.

So, even if you’re not happy with your design or you think it’s become obsolete, please upload it to Thingiverse and, whatever you do, please don’t delete it!

DC Fan holder by tatsuya

Thing-O-Matic Z-axes stepper motor is very hot. I made a holder to make cool-down in DC fans. 40mm FAN Countersunk screw M3x14 and M3 nut

This thing brought to you by

1. If this were the ’80′s, anything could be improved by adding a clock-radio to it. [↩]
2. But, since this is now 2011 – it can be improved by someone making it connect to various social networks. [↩]
3. For other Thing-O-Matic owners – calibrating your stepper boards is kind of a pain – but a seriously critical step in getting the best results from your printer. [↩]

Bre and Thingiverse in the Botcave, featured in The Daily video

Check out this great video about Citizen Engineers and Garage Tinkerers that features  MakerBot Friendlies Becky Stern and Limor Fried. Also watch for Bre Pettis and lots of shots of the BotCave, testing rigs, Thingiverse, and Luis’s 3D printed Unicorn dropping into hand from the belt of a Thing-O-Matic into a welcoming hand.

How To Develop A Prototype - Business Insider

An interview with Bre Pettis and the origin story for MakerBot Industries featured in a Business Insider article titled “How to Develop a Prototype.”

A few snips from the article that caught my eye:

“We are living in a fantastic renaissance of innovation right now,” says Bre Pettis, co-founder of MakerBot Industries and the NYC Resistor, a hacker collective. Groups like NYC Resistor bring together like-minded hobbyists to collaborate and build ideas with laser cutters, rapid prototyping machines, and electronic-building software. The group has even given rise to products, including Pettis’ very own MakerBot, a 3D printer available for under $1,000 (3D printers, typically costing several thousands of dollars, create objects by stacking plastic or metal layers on top of one another).

A little more than a year into business, Pettis has shipped more than 3,000 of his MakerBots to what-to-be inventors throughout the country. He says the device can make almost anything up to 4”x4”x6′. The device converts 3D CAD files into tangible, plastic models of any shape or size. It may take a little while to build the machine and master the software, but costs a lot less than what a development firm might charge you. “You can feel really comfortable coming up with ideas, printing it, making mistakes, and re-printing it,” Pettis says.

A number of products, and even companies, have spawned from the likes of MakerBots and hacker collectives as well. Pettis says the founders of the social network Diaspora met putting together a MakerBot in computer science class at NYU. Tinkerers can even share their homemade designs on a site called Thingiverse.com, which features everything from toy cars to salt- and pepper-shakers to robotic arms. With more ease of use and collaboration, DIY modeling today acts almost as a natural prelude to prototyping.