This past weekend, MakerBot had a great time sharing The MakerBot Replicator with good friends from the MakerBot Community as well as probably the best manufacturing-savvy general audiences we have ever chatted with.

Special delights included:

• Inviting Zheng3 to share his open source tabletop war game called SEEJ on Saturday, followed by an afternoon of energetic gameplay. (Thanks, ShopBot, for the use of the awesome table!)
• A few MakerBot Operators headed to the Henry Ford Museum to 123D Catch the Wienermobile. (Let’s each share our results on Thingiverse, folks!)
• Bernie (aka SSW on Thingiverse) brought his kids with their Twirl Mini Mustache prints. (Our booth printed them for hours to the delight of eager children waiting for a Helsinki Sky colored ‘stache.)

We also added Chicago superuser Mike Moceri from the ChiMUG to the booth for the weekend to clock highspeed scanning time trials, using the Microsoft Kinect and ReconstructMe. He accomplished this entire process up to start-of-print in around 5 minutes per head, which Bre described as “a zero to sixty record for MakerBots.”

See you all at World Maker Faire in NYC!

MakerBot is hitting up another awesome Maker Faire, this time in Detroit. We love going to events because it gives us a chance to show people what our technology and our community are all about. If you have a chance to see us in Detroit this weekend, here’s what you can expect!

***Double Plus Good Announcement: We will indeed be selling MakerBot’s latest machine, The Replicator, during Maker Faire Detroit! Come find us in the Maker Shed for details.***

Saturday @ Noon
Jim, aka “Zheng3”, will be on hand for part of the afternoon to share his adventures creating an open source tabletop wargame with the world on Thingiverse! Join him for a quick talk at noon — and then take him on in a match!

Saturday @ 2:00 p.m.
Mike Moceri will give a quick demo of how he uses a Microsoft Kinect, ReconstructMe, and his MakerBot to quickly scan, clean-up, and print 3D portraits. Many have tried, but Mike is by far “the fastest scan-to-print operator in the Thingiverse.”

Saturday @ 4:30 p.m.
Sign up in advance at the MakerBot Booth to join MakerBot’s Community Manager Matt Griffin on a Capture Session in the Henry Ford Museum. We will be heading out from the booth promptly at 4:30pm to travel through the museum, hunting for interesting pieces of history in the areas that permit photography for personal use. We’ll contribute the object to the Capture Your Town project on Thingiverse by using 123D Catch to create a 3D model and then repairing it using Meshmixer.

Sunday @ 3:00 p.m.
MakerBot Family Portrait! Calling all MakerBot Operators at Maker Faire Detroit. Join us briefly right at 3PM to take a quick family portrait at the MakerBot Booth — quickly followed by some special treats we brought to share with all of the incredible MakerBot Operators in our midsts.

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!