They’re multiplying!

Backstory: after their debut at the Maker Faire Bay Area 2012, the creatures of the MakerBot Robot Petting Zoo were put onto Thingiverse. First Wheely, then Bumper Bot, Button Bot, and Bubble Bot.

And then we noticed that a couple of these bots were quietly re-made by two brave Thingiverse citizens. Woot!

Here’s Xephius’ version of Wheely, with a hilarious description below.

This is a descendant of early high performance sport UAV’s that settled in BC’s Fraser Valley. They can easily be identified by the bright yellow and red markings and tell tail Stainless Steel Rodgers hardware in Imperial not Metric. (Canadian Tire doesn’t carry any M3 hardware!) Because of the relatively low number of wild UAV’s in BC (420 in last count), they are protected by the Province. Recent observations show they are attracted to Poutine, Hockey pucks, and Timbits, seen here courting a Sieg X2 CNC mill…

Just hours ago, a new cousin to this Wheely derivative popped up, too! Here’s cornwarrior’s version of Bumper Bot.

Awesome work by these two superstar Thingiverse members Xephius (aka John Cooney) and cornwarrior (aka Josh Kugler)!

Two down, two to go. Who will complete the happy family?

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!

Untitled by MakerBot

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