There are some great videos on I, Bioloid spotlighting the freakishly cool work of our Design Superstar Michael Curry. People loved the Minions Michael (aka Skimbal) made, and he got to show them off at Maker Faire Kansas City last week.

The first video shows the Minions sitting among the buildings of Skimbal’s Sim City replica.

 

Here’s another one showing Minion “Big Sister” in action against Michael Overstreet’s “Boomer”.

 

Check out more from I, Bioloid.

 

On Thursday, myself and three of my MakerBot colleagues Michael Curry, Tony Sherwood and Dave Neff, headed to the great midwestern metropolis that is Kansas City, Missouri, to prep for Maker Faire: Kansas City this Saturday.

Sticking to (what we were told to be) strict KC greeting traditions, we hosted a huge Oklahoma Joe’s MakerBot BBQ+Hackathon at Hammerspace last night, joined by a gathering of KC Fabricators MUG and other CCCKC & Hammerspace regulars, all itching for a chance to see a small herd of The MakerBot Replicators in action.

This town has a very special place in MakerBot’s (mechanical) heart – Michael and Tony in particular have spent a great deal of time here — and it has become over time the undisputed US midwestern Paris of the 3D printing world. Actually, it just might be the 3D printing “Paris” of anywhere in the world — take that Paris, France! — with more passionate 3D printing enthusiasts than just about anywhere you’ve heard of.

Maker Faire: Kansas City: Delights for Makers and Minions

Between the MakerBot booth and the tables of MakerBot Operators from all over the country, there will be quite a few 3D printed and 3D printing delights on hand for this “Show Me State” crowd — including sneak previews of MakerBot’s new colors of plastic, a tremendous printed Heart Gears to melt yours, a gorgeous data visualization of the Makers of Thingiverse created by Tony Buser, and Michael Curry’s robot Minion table.

What’s more, MakerBot’s Jeff and RJ have flown out to join us today and they have a handful of Replicators for visitors to purchase on-site, only the second time in history that this opportunity has been possible.

Capture Your Town: Kansas City Style (i.e. Slow-Smoked)

A “special mission” has been declared by the KC Fabricators MUG team: a call for anyone with pride in Kansas City to help capture or model a few of the many distinctive elements of the Kansas City skyline and get them up on Thingiverse.com with the tag “captured” and “kcfabricators“. The options proposed so far (that I have heard) have included the gigantic Shuttlecocks (see below) at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Liberty Memorial, the Power and Light Building, and (perhaps meant less sincerely?) 3D scanning the many merry locals staggering from location to location in the Power and Light ”drinking district.”

I’ll be on hand all weekend to help any of you who wish to dive into capturing tools like Autodesk’s 123D Catch – and keep your eye to the Community Capture Your Town project page for information and advice. I have promised to Craig and Luis that if KC Fabricators get KC monuments and other delights up by Friday or Saturday night at 10pm, I’ll download and take a look at printing the KC landmark at the MakerBot booth during the weekend.

Did anybody catch what’s going on on our Facebook page right now?

First there was one.

 

And then a small clan.

 

Who got a little restless.

 

This afternoon, the Minions finally got their hands on our CEO Bre Pettis.

 

We are now accepting applications for CEO.¹

These little guys, the Minions, are the latest from Skimbal’s Desk. We had no idea the demand would be so high, but fear not! Skimbal will have these on his Thingiverse page on Friday!

 

 

1. just kidding! [↩]

In further celebration of Geek Pride Day, we are pleased to announce that the masterpieces collection from the MakerBot Design Team known as the Robot Petting Zoo will now be available on Thingiverse!

You heard us talk about these and you saw it all over Engadget and CNET and a bunch of other spots. We are incredibly proud of these little guys, and not just because they won Editor’s Choice from Maker Faire. They represent what a MakerBot is capable of and the power of combining open-source hardware technologies.

Now it’s time for the more important phase in the project: when we put the files in your hands and tell you to run free with them. (Don’t run too free. In our experience, you’ll need a fence to keep these robots in one place). In keeping with the open-source, collaborative spirit of everything we do here, the designs are now yours to use as you please. And the beauty is you can take these and be inspired to come up with other pet robots, and help us turn this petting zoo into a robot circus.

The first set of files to go up are for Wheely, the “robotic chicken” designed by Michael Curry. Here is how Michael describes his pet robot.

Wheely is a domesticated subspecies of the common Flightless Aircraft.  Found in the disused aerodromes of the southwestern deserts, Wheelies descend from earlier generations of autonomous UAV’s.  They live in rigorously organized communities called ‘squadrons’ and spend most of their lives socializing.  Largely ambivalent to other mechanical organisms, Wheely retains his ancestors ability to detect electric fields.

Wheely is up on Thingiverse right now (!!), and the rest of the bots — Bumper, Bubble, and Button — will be up in the next couple of days. Go make these, make them different, make them yours!

Sure, it seems harmless and innocuous at first.  A little upgrade here, a little upgrade there.  A super strong metalic arm, a sweet head’s up display, maybe an embedded MP3 player.  People, don’t you understand – no good can come of mashing up evil cyborgs and dispensers of delicious candy?!  The next thing you know we have replicas of talk show hosts and disruptive CEO’s.  I urge, no – I implore you, please stop the madness.  And, whatever you do, do not create an evil cyborg action figure that can walk on it’s own.

P.S. A special thanks to TeamTeamUSA, 7777773, Tony Buser, jbakutis, skimbal, I-Bioloid, Luis, and InnovationByLayers for bringing us just a little closer to Judgment Day and the robopocalypse.

P.P. S.  Okay.  You got me.  I’m not really that worried about the coming robopocalypse.  I really just wanted a post highlighting awesome Doctor Who-themed things on Thingiverse so I could post THIS:

Thanks for the head’s up Sasha!!!

On April 19, a hasty set of emails was exchanged between, ultimately, the BotFarm and a Japanese robot designer. Dig this drama:

Yoshishiro Shibata, the notable lead designer of the Kondo series of humanoid robots, was on a flight from Japan to San Francisco, all set to participate in Robogames. But wait. The robot wasn’t complete. Hands were vulnerable, open to attack. They needed a shield.

Shibata-san sketched out the right shield, but not even the most motivated Maker can print from the air (unless of course…). He connected mid-flight with friends on the ground to see what could be done. Michael Overstreet of Cowtown Computer Congress Kansas City caught wind of the designer in distress and contacted MakerBot’s Michael Curry, who in turn sought the assistance of Gian Pablo Villamil, a MakerBot Education evangelist and organizer at Noisebridge in San Francisco.

The sketch became a 3D model, and with Gian Pablo on the case, the model became a fully MakerBotted part, ready for show time at Robogames the next day. After printing, Gian Pablo jumped in the car at his workshop on Treasure Island and made the trek over to the San Mateo Fairgrounds.

The handoff was a success. It is certainly cool that a bi-coastal network of Makers were able to materialize a part for someone in need, especially since that someone was on an international flight. But there’s something else here: for Mr. Shibata, having the tools to create a customized part for his robot was a foregone conclusion, which freed him to design and commission exactly what he needed.

We’re happy MakerBot could help in this process!

UPDATE! For a bunch of awesome coverage of all things Robot, including Robo Games, check out Robots Dreams!

 

 

An interesting post just crossed my screen that I think our designer/tinkerer (and/or designer-tinkerer) readers would probably be able to shed more light on than me.

Dr. James Self wrote at Core77 about his doctoral research into the different processes industrial designers use to move from concept to object. When is a sketch appropriate and when does someone use a computer in the very early stages of conceptualizing?

Basically, it varies.

Findings indicate that sketching continues to underpin design activity. Professional experience also influences the use of sketching in support of design activity. Less experienced design students tend to lack confidence in their sketch ability and they find the dynamic, unconstrained medium at odds with an approach to design activity that errs towards fixation and attachment to concept.

As part of my research I visited practicing designers at their places of work and interviewed them about their use of design tools. Interestingly, the designers often juxtaposed the affordance of sketching against the limitations of 3D CAD tools. Like many in design education, practitioners stressed the explorative, divergent affordance of sketching over the more constrained convergent nature of CAD. Of course they understood the value of CAD, but spoke of a concern for the ways it may limit student creativity, ‘a student’s design being too influenced by the constraints of this or that software.’

There is more in the piece regarding the timeline for introducing design tools to students. I’m curious, though: how do MakerBot operators use design tools? Many of our operators are not designers at all, and perhaps not so great with drawing. Turns out, they’re not alone; neither are many of our in-house designers.

I just popped by our design studio to find out how our team works, and it seems the answer is: everybody’s different. Some of them sketch everything before diving into any CAD work, while Michael Curry, our Design Superstar, does the “sketching” in his head, because, simply, he sucks at drawing. When he does draw, it’s to test a mechanical idea, to run a structural experiment in 2D.

So what about you? Do you sketch before you SketchUp? Is the idea of drawing something a little too free-form for you, or conversely is CAD too complex to the point of inhibiting an idea?

I’d love to know your process. If you’ve got something to say, perhaps there’s room for your advice on this very blog. So chime in!

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! [↩]

I would normally feel sorry for someone in this man’s situation, but IWorkInPixels just looks so dang happy wearing Skimbal’s Higher Resolution Head Crab.

While we have been hard at work getting our MakerBot Replicators assembled and packed for our imminent shipping launch, several of us have been putting the early prototype Replicators in the office to hard use.

There are a number of questions about plastic and printing that have tickled our imaginations for quite a while — questions easier to answer now thanks to the improved ease of use of our latest machines. The first question we tackled is our most frequently asked one: “How much can you print with a single 1kg MakerBot Spool?”

The answer “Approximately 1kg of printed parts!” is correct, but it isn’t very satisfying. So we looked for a model to help us demonstrate this point more clearly. Being nerds, we figured standard chess pieces are the ideal metric.¹

So a couple of weeks ago, Michael Curry grabbed an early Thingiverse chess set from cbiffle as a place to start.² We skeined up these files as individual pieces, as a cluster of the six uniques, and then just said “heck with it” and went for the whole shebang: an entire side of a chess set in one go. Michael began printing. And printing. And printing. “Surely we can print like over 100 pieces with one spool, right?” I said.

And printing, and printing, and printing. A handwritten sign on the bot read: “Please keep printing chess!” And finally, just this week, the experiment was completed.

Here’s what we learned.

• A single spool of plastic produces 392 chess pieces.
• 392 chess pieces makes a little over 12 complete monochromatic chess sets.
• The MakerBot Replicator ships with two spools — 1kg of Natural ABS and 1kg of Black ABS.
• MakerBot Operators can print over 24 complete black and white chess sets with the plastic they receive with a new Replicator!

Check out the field of chess produced by the single spool — a MakerBot Replicator with 1kg of plastic absolutely crushes at printing chess!

1. Because all of us are playing chess every day, right? Well, if only it were true. What does the castle and the beak piece do again? I know what the horsey piece does, it jousts! [↩]
2. With his kind permission! [↩]