MakerBot Industries

Tonight at 9pm EST sharp (6pm PST) on Make: Live, hosts Becky Stern and Matt Richardson will direct their attention to the world of DIY 3D printing.

This short 30-40min episode will feature lots for the MakerBot world to love! Catch segments with MakerBot staff such as an interview with CEO Bre Pettis, a Tinkercad demo by hacker/educator Liz Arum, and a teardown of the Turtle Shell Racers from the MakerBot Raceway at World Maker Faire 2011 with modeler/maker Michael Curry !

Becky Stern by Friends

sternlab.org/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Becky_Stern - Part of a ongoing project scanning the heads of bloggers, artists, DIYers, makers, musicians, hackers and anybody else we think is notable. Made with a Polhemus 3d scanner at MakerBot.

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Matt Richardson by Friends

mattrichardson.com/

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Polhemus Scan of Bre Pettis by bre

We'll be scanning a tv personality next week and so we are renting a Polhemus high end laser scanner. We needed to test it out. Bre Pettis: Scanner Guinea Pig.

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Preparing for a quest

A day or so ago I tried out a single TinkerCAD quest.  I then immediately completed all of them.¹  Frankly, I was kinda shocked they were as fun as they turned out to be.  If you haven’t given this a shot, I highly recommend trying it out.

Some of my favorite video games include what amounts to a learning level.  Your first goal is to complete a simple task using a set of features before really getting into the game.  By the time you’ve completed those simple tasks, you’re basically ready to tackle any of the obstacles in your way.  Many programs include initial help dialogs to point out the various buttons or even a learning mode, but most have you learn by viewing rather than learning by doing.

Given how much fun I have 3D printing, it’s very refreshing to also have a fun way to design as well.

1. Photo courtesy of Lrice [↩]

Tinkercad, a powerful online solid modeling CAD application, has just introduced a new feature that I have a feeling will be very popular among MakerBot Operators.

Secretly (or not so secretly?) the developers are veteran hardcore games developers taking a stab at a new field. They draw from their past UI/interactive design experience to create a focused tool that is designed from the ground up to be as intuitive a modeler as most people need for 3D printing models.

I was at first dubious about a WebGL-based solid modeler, as much as I love 3dtin, but I became converted while team-teaching a “Prototyping on a MakerBot” course for the teen after-school program at Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. Students picked up Tinkercad quickly, and made intricate, capable work during the first session, projects that I was able to print for them with little or no STL repair!

A number of Thingiverse participants have been using this tool (Including me)  – and the Tinkercad “Export to Thingiverse” button makes it easy for them to share their design and print files they have created with the software here.

Well, the Tinkercad developers didn’t leave the games part of their past experience out of the equation — they have started rolling games elements into Tinkercad as a tutorial series designed to help user dive into using their tool quickly and easily. I have taken a couple of them and enjoyed them — and I love the beautiful Thing-O-Matic-printed buttons that is featured in their current Quest set. (They hope to start adding new quests fairly regularly, as these quests generate the feedback they need to tune this element of Tinkercad. Make sure to dive in now and send feedback to help them move forward with the Quests project!)

So create or login to your Tinkercad account — and discover the new Quests tab on the top bar. Happy questing!

Hey it’s Friday!  In light of that, we’ve whipped up another addition of Robot Hospital, which we hope you’ll enjoy.  We’ve got a new product announcement (new Nema 17 motors), a report from the Blip festival, where we’ll be demoing bots tonight and tomorrow, and the final installment of Matt’s squirrel modeling tutorial.

In this episode Ethan gives you a worms-eye view of perfecting your build surface, Matt gives you an nifty intro to solid modeling withTinkerCad, and Isaac runs down the latest notables from Thingiverse! Check it out!

You might remember a few weeks ago when we announced that the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, had acquired a Thing-O-Matic. Well, registration is now open for a FREE Cooper-Hewitt workshop for teens, focused on prototyping with a MakerBot. Starting on April 30th, the workshop will consist of five hands-on sessions led by MakerBot’s Matt and Mike: four at Tekserve, with a fifth hosted by MakerBot in the BotCave and BotFarm for final prints and critiques.

For more information, take a look at the Cooper-Hewitt posting for the series here. Very limited slots, so register quickly!

Workshop participants will learn to:

• Design and print prototypes in 3-D.
• Use 3-D apps like Rhino, Blender and brand-new Tinkercad. (We are going to tune our choices a bit based on experience of teens participating.)
• Assemble, modify, and troubleshoot Makerbot hardware and software.

Mike and I are looking forward to team teaching this series. Also, we will be sharing our curriculum, tips & tricks, and student models-in-progress with the MakerBot community here and at Thingiverse for those of you who don’t live in NYC and will miss out on this opportunity.

Hydrant Totem by tbuser

Yesterday morning, moments after learning about the Tinkercad beta, MakerBot Operator TBuser dived in head first to test what he might do with the tool. Before necessarily arriving at any specific sense of what his model might be, he sent me the model (simply by passing me a Tinkercad link).

Five minutes later, my bot was printed his object first at 1:1 and then at 2:1 scale without any cleanup or manipulation of the model other than centering it on the build platform. The MakerBot Thing-O-Matic on my desk (with a Stepstruder MK6 and 0.4mm nozzle) had no difficulty printing the model despite a number of challenges (like the cylinder cut through the middle) at either scale — and I was able to hand over the models to Tony before he had had much time to notice that I was printing it out.

Take a look at Tony’s Thingiverse release of the item (now a “Hydrant Totem”) and consider the implications of this workflow model. Not only is he able to generate a printable STL with a one-button click (which can be easily revised and adjusted in a host of STL scripts and tools) but he can also share a link to the model in Tinkercad so that another user might duplicate the project, make revisions, and then print a new model.

This is game changing, folks. Imagine how much easier this route is than jumping through hoops to share SketchUp files.¹ Share a Tinkercad link and others can work on your model in its original design environment right in your browser.

TinkerCAD is still in beta, so I suggest you jump in to push this tool hard as well — and send constructive feedback to the developer. This tool is shaping into something I have been waiting for since exploring the charming 3dtin.com.

Hydrant Totem by tbuser

Playing with tinkercad.com It sort of looks like a fire hydrant and sort of looks like a totem. View it on tinkercad: tinkercad.com/p/acc0c5996fe6d9d4

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1. The past benefit of Sketchup being the wide adoption and lower learning curve for modeling. [↩]

Cloud Options

Whatever your preferences and skill level, there’s now an online CAD program for you!  There have been several really amazing online CAD programs released in the last seven or so months. ¹  There’s Tony Buser’s CloudSCAD, 3DTin.com, and just today TinkerCAD just entered open Beta.  Interestingly, I don’t see these three CAD programs as competitors.  If 3D design were building blocks, 3DTin.com would be the Duplo – quick, intuitive, and easy to use with the trade-off being limited resolution.  CloudSCAD is the web based version of my favorite modeling program, the open-source OpenSCAD.  I’ve only used TinkerCAD a little, but it’s looking very promising so far as a full-fledged solid CAD program that lives in your browser.

FireFox users, be warned!  FireFox is kinda fussy about WebGL.  If you’re having problems getting FireFox to run TinkerCAD, give this page a shot.

1. Photo courtesy of Kevin Dooley [↩]