Michael Curry's display at Detroit Maker Faire 2011
It’s little wonder that Michael Curry, of the Cowtown Computer Congress, was the recipient of an Awesome Award at this year’s Detroit Maker Faire for showing off his Mario Cart racing cars (with remotes!), Christmas Lego men, Bathtub U-Boat, and a Portal sentry turret.
Thanks to Jon Speicher for the photo!
Popular Mechanics: "Top 10 Coolest DIY Projects from MakerFaire"
The MakerBot crew was in attendance at MakerFaire 2011 – Bay Area this past weekend — where the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic made quite a splash. Check out a little of what Popular Mechanics has to say about our latest DIY 3D printer kit:
MakerBot Thing-O-MaticMakerBot Industries is a pure example of the maker ethos: Not only has the company created an interesting machine, but its machine’s sole purpose is to create things. Provided with the right instructions, it can print just about any 3D shape into plastic.
It can be hard to explain why exactly someone might want a 3D printer, so the crew put together a demo: a facial scanning system housed inside a 7-foot-tall dome built by maker Michael Felix, the joints of which were created with a 3D printer. Inside, fellow maker Kyle MacDonald uses the infrared camera bar from a Microsoft Kinect, along with software he wrote himself, to capture 3D models of attendees’ faces, which are then printed into plastic statues. The whole process, from flesh to plastic, takes only 45 minutes.
| Tagged with | dome, kinect, kyle mcdonald, maker faire 2011, Michael Felix, popular mechanics, thing-o-matic | One comment |
Kids watching a MakerBot for the first time
I had the distinct pleasure of helping out at the MakerBot table this last weekend at Maker Faire Bay Area 2011.1 After watching dozens of kids and adults exposed to a 3D printer for the first time, here’s the main difference:
Adults: “Wait, can you make anything?”
Kids: “You can make anything!”
While adults may find a 3D printer interesting, somehow kids just seem to “get it.” Somehow seeing the machine run and looking at a few finished pieces next to it, kids seemed able to completely understand that they could use a 3D printer to make anything they wanted.2
| Tagged with | kids, maker faire, maker faire 2011, maker faire bay area, maker faire bay area 2011 | 3 comments |
This is a lightweight dodecahedron made from triangular trusses. The model pictured is 166 grams, made with "long" trusses on the "medium" setting in MakerWare (.27mm). I printed the on my Rep2 with Sailfish firmware. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodecahedron…
