From “Star Trek” to “Tron” to “The Matrix”, the idea of taking something from the physical world and recreating it in the digital world has always captured our imaginations. This year, we made that technology a reality when we released the MakerBot® Digitizer® Desktop 3D Scanner, which quickly turns the things in your world into 3D models that you can modify, improve, share, and 3D print.
We’re so grateful to all of the proud MakerBot Digitizer owners who’ve pioneered the future of desktop 3D scanning with us this year. Keep uploading all of your great 3D scans to MakerBot® Thingiverse®.
It’s amazing to work on a product that touches the hearts of its customers, but it’s even more rewarding when customers use one of our products to touch the hearts and lives of others. Richard Van As of South Africa and Ivan Owen of Seattle, WA did just that. Using two MakerBot® Replicator® 2 Desktop 3D Printers that we donated, Richard and Ivan designed and rapidly prototyped a 3D printable Robohand for adults and children with missing fingers. The Robohand has been widely featured in the media and has given hand functionality to numerous adults and children around the world who may not be able to afford expensive prosthetics. In fact, the Robohand designs from Thingiverse have been downloaded more than 50,000 times!
Learning through touch and interaction is disappearing from our education system. We believe that putting a desktop 3D printer in a classroom can help teachers and parents reclaim important hands-on learning opportunities for students, as well as expose them to design thinking and emerging technology to prepare them for the job markets of the future. That’s why in November we launched MakerBot Academy, an educational initiative to put a MakerBot 3D printer in every school in America. We’ve already received letters from students and teachers across the country who are busy printing their first 3D models.
We made a new friend this year. Our merger with Stratasys is expected to help both our companies create innovative and exciting products for our customers. We were thrilled to meet the smart, motivated, and friendly folks on the Stratasys team, and couldn’t be more excited about the amazing things we’ll do together in the years to come.
We’re also proud to have opened two new retail stores, in Greenwich, CT and Boston, MA. We’ve partnered with giant retailers like Amazon.com and Microsoft retail stores to make buying MakerBot 3D products easier than ever. We’ve launched exciting partnerships with Saks Fifth Avenue, Yahoo!, Riverhead Books and others.
But the best evidence of a good year is in how much making is going on. The number of designs on MakerBot Thingiverse nearly quadrupled this year, with more than 75,000 3D models added by community members. We love looking at all your designs and can’t wait to see what you make in 2014!