Keith and I are on the road again, finding ourselves in the middle of Orlando, Florida at MegaCon, a comics/science fiction/horror/fantasy/games/anime fandom convention said to be second only to ComicCon for costumes, massive crowds, and enthusiasm. I have been hugged, knighted, threatened with tree-claws (to the best of my understanding), and danced at by such a wild panoply of characters, and that was during the lighter attended first day. How have I been responding to this? By blowing minds, one zombie-witch-soldier-Sailor-Moon-droid-monster at a time with The MakerBot Replicator.

It must date me to admit that I recognize the Star Wars, Star Trek, Buffy, and classic Marvel and DC characters, but get a bit hazy re: the fine distictions among a slew of girls-with-cat-ears and blue-mohawk-massive-sword anime costumes. (Co-worker Ben would definitely recognize all of the anime characters, and I’m tempted to send him pictures for his consultation.) But the level of creativity and ingenuity on display with costumes, props, and fan-collectables is considerably impressive. Part of the reason is that Stan Lee is here, and people have traveled thousands of miles for the chance to meet him and get his autograph. (Because he ain’t a young whipper-snapper.)

In honor of Stan Lee we have been printing and giving away tiny Thor’s Hammers that I created as a keychain derivative of Skimbal’s version. And we are also taking request for a huge variety of comics and fandom related elements from Thingiverse.com.

If you are nearby, press through the throngs of 300k people to come to Booth #529 to visit us. We have a secret show special that is for in-person visitors only!

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!

Panoramic Egg (parametric too!) by MakerBlock

Basic Egg Cup, printed by Mark Cohen

I talked with Keith, MakerBot’s Marketing Manager, last week — he had a theory why so many great things went up on Thingiverse around Easter / Passover: ”This season is already really crafty, like Halloween. You are expected to create decorations while drawing families together — so this is a great Thingiverse season.”

So much awesome¹ went up after my Stanford Bunny post last week that I wanted to highlight a few more favorites. A number are egg-focused, including MakerBlock’s incredible parametrical panoramic egg.² So another reason must certainly have something to do with eggs, eggshells, egg-bots, and the things you can do with all of these things.

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1. Keith’s favorite word [↩]
2. Mashups are no longer just hijinks, they are becoming some of my favorite designs on Thingiverse. I cannot wait to have the time to try to print MakerBlock’s design, as well as Chick In Egg by nicholasclewis [↩]