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 !

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Check out this video of the folks at Engadget racing a duo of turtle shell racers around their offices!

The lil’ guys weren’t too tired to pay a visit to the live taping of the Engadget Show yesterday, where they were a big hit with the audience! Hosts Brian Heater and Tim Stevens drove them around the studio as an intro to a segment on Maker Faire NYC, which featured the turtle shell race track and designer Michael Curry (Skimbal).

The Engadget team also devoted a blog post to the turtle shell racers.  Here’s just a little of what they had to say:

“MakerBot’s Turtle Shell Racers may well be just the ambassador that the world of 3D printing needs. The toy football-sized RC cars are proof positive that the devices can turn just about anything you can imagine into reality.”

I’m sure you’ve all been at the edge of your seats eagerly awaiting the arrival of MakerBot TV’s second episode!
Well wait no more – S01E02 is here!!! And it is, dare I say, even more awesome than the first one!

In this episode we’ll get you hyped-up for Maker Faire, have some behind-the-scenes fun with turtle-building Skimbal, learn about bot calibration with Elliot and get the low down on a brand new and totally rad MakerBot challenge with Bre.

Special Thanks to:
Tony Buser for the use of Bobble Head Bob, 2ROBOTGUY for his alphabet design.
And all these great folks for the use of their music: Doctor Popular, Vim, µB and Trash80.

There has been quite a bit of excitement over at the Botcave since Thingiverse user Skimbal – creator of one of the site’s most popular models of all time, the Gothic Cathedral Play Set — launched his Turtle Shell Racers project (High and Low Power Edition). His project is both a love note to Mario Kart and Super Mario Bros in general, and probably the coolest MakerBot project we have seen to date: freely downloadable parts and building instructions for modding an RC car into a “Turtle Shell Racer.” Not sold in stores, but free to print on your MakerBot. It’s like playing Mario Kart in real life!

We launched the story on Friday afternoon, and since then sites such as Engadget are picking up not only the story of the release, but the late breaking news that MakerBot hired Skimbal to create and release projects like these full time.

Check out his teardown video to get more details how to extract what you need from the cheap RC car that will be the heart of your MakerBot Turtle Shell Racer!

Update: Bre here, Skimbal is an awesome designer who has just really impressed everyone in the MakerBot community. I’m excited to announce that we just hired him to make awesome projects and document them here at MakerBot Industries full time. He’ll be moving to Brooklyn to design, make, and document awesome MakerBottable things. To say we’re excited at MakerBot to bring him on board is an serious understatement. Be prepared for more Skimbal awesomeness coming soon to a MakerBot near you!

Turtle Shell Racer – High Power Edition by Skimbal

We got a glimpse of Skimbal’s Turtle Shell Racers in a recent photo from the Detroit MakerFaire, but a picture is even better.  If you ever had a doubt about the raw potential and power inherent in the humble MakerBot Cupcake CNC, please allow such misconceptions to be thusly dispelled.  Besides the incredible amount of work that went into designing and printing these, Skimbal obviously put a lot of work into the documentation as well.  He’s included all the STL’s files you’d need to print one, a list of materials, a PDF of how to assemble them, and, of course, a few videos of them in action!  Well done, sir!  Well done!

Go download the files for the Turtle Shell Racers at Thingiverse. Bonus! Download the awesome instructional booklet!