From John:

Where John MakerBots, etc.

Check out this nice array of machines. On his blog, John writes that the Prusa Mendel (left) and the Tantillus (right) are both using parts made with his Thing-O-Matic. That’s a family photo if I’ve ever seen one! Thanks for sharing, John.

There’s a new post up at 3DPrinting@UMW, the blog about the MakerBotting adventures of a couple faculty members at University of Mary Washington in Virginia. I hope Tim won’t mind me nabbing his picture; this result from a Kinect scan is just too good.

The post says he sat in a spinning chair and turned slowly while the Kinect grabbed the image, and then used Christoph Heindl’s program ReconstructMe to turn the scan into a 3D mesh. The bust you see above was made on a TOM. Nice. It’s good enough for me to read the expression on Tim’s face, and I would bet he ruffled his shirt a bit to show how well the combination of Kinect, ReconstructMe, and a Thing-O-Matic could capture reality. Tim also gives fair credit to the pretty fantastic instructional video from our Tony Buser on how to clean up a model.

Also, I love this closing thought:

In many ways it feels like the advances being made in this field are so incredibly fast moving that it’s hard to keep up. The great thing is it feels closer to magic than reality, and how often do you get to say that about the work you do in higher education?

“Magic” seems to be a bit of a theme on this blog.

3D printing is one of the truly revolutionary things you can witness. I’m reminded of Arthur C. Clarke’s third law “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” While showing the devices to undergraduate art students in a sculpture class those words rang truer than ever as their eyes lit up in wonderment. The power to create objects in a virtual space, print them, and hold them in the physical is unbelievable.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what comes out of this group when they get their Replicator in the fall. Make on, UMW!

A few colleagues and I had a truly great time up in Westport, Connecticut last weekend, where we were part of that state’s first ever Maker Faire event. This Mini Maker Faire was held on the giant lawn outside the Westport Public Library. The only downside there was that a bunch of the guests and makers at Saturday’s event probably didn’t get a chance to go inside that gorgeous facility.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone for stopping by to see us. I learned a lot from all the visitors to our table. For example, Dr. Raimund Herzog stopped by to discuss some challenges he was facing with his Thing-O-Matic extruder. He didn’t realize it, but he was giving me an education in the history of extruders.

Ray also shared a really helpful tip that I think bears re-mentioning on the blog: when assembling your TOM, it’s always a good idea to have a magnetic wand on hand, such as the one he received along with his Weller soldering station.

If you’re about to embark on an assembly adventure, get one of these. I assembled a Replicator the other day and found myself wishing I had one on hand. The guys and girls in the Bot Cave use them a lot, in case you’re wondering about the tools of the trade.

Here’s a shot of Ray showing us how useful this tool was in putting together his Filament Spindle Box, and another shot below it from our Support pages showing another angle.

Thanks, Ray!

In the it’s-happy-hour-somewhere vein:

I love how these guys print their bottle opener in order to have that emergency beer at the office.