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May 10 2012
You Know What Makes Me Mad? Ink Cartridges.
At MakerBot, we are on a mission to make manufacturing things yourself inexpensive, easy, and fun. We hold the MakerBot Operators of the world in the highest regard. We’ve been engineering our tails off to bring you the best personal 3D printer and we rejected the proprietary cartridge model for printing materials which other companies use, because we encourage sharing and iteration. And those are both best done when material is inexpensive. You can be generous and give things away and the cost of failure is low. We believe the low cost of failure will drive people to iterate their designs, bask in the glow of innovation, and invent the future.
I hate the ink cartridge business model where the machine is ultra cheap and the ink cartridge is absurdly expensive. Have you ever bought an inkjet printer inexpensively and then run out of ink at a critical moment? Then you have to go out and spend a lot of money on a whole new cartridge. It often is cheaper and more convenient to buy a new printer than it is to buy a replacement cartridge. On top of that, I’ve had an inkjet say it’s out of ink when there’s visibly still ink in the cartridge. This is done by chipping the cartridges to monitor use, so you can never use all the material. That makes me so mad. It’s wrong.
This is such an old, accepted model of doing business, we don’t even think about it anymore. Razor blades, ink cartridges, photo printers, Swiffers, and mobile phones & service contracts. That’s the old world. That’s a wasteful world. That’s a world in which consumers are treated like hostages. That’s not the future I want to live in. The way we’re doing things at MakerBot is common sense. It shouldn’t be a revolutionary business model, but these days, it is.
March 12 2012
Danville, Virginia Ready for the Revolution
File under unexpected-but-awesome! The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research hosted a talk on the glories of additive personal manufacturing last week, and who showed up to bring home the message? That’s right, our friend the Thing-O-Matic!
Christopher Williams, assistant professor of Chemical Engineering and DREAMS Lab Director at Virginia Tech (an IALR partner), told the crowd,
There are no more constraints…There are no more rules about what can and can’t be made.
Preach on, Dr. Williams! We’re thrilled MakerBot was part of your evening.
February 07 2012
The Future, soon available at your local drug store
"The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." - William Gibson
How long ago was it that you first saw a pack of blank CD’s at your local drug store or super market? 1 For me this was ten years ago. I purchased my first CD burner in 1998 – but it wasn’t until about 2002 that I first saw a blank CD at the corner drug store. Until that time I could only find blank CD’s online or at electronic component stores. But, at some time between 1995, when I first saw a CD burner and 2002, when the media were available off just about any store shelf, the future, to paraphrase William Gibson, started to become evenly distributed.
I wonder how long it will be before I can find plastic filament in the supermarket? 2
- Photo courtesy of indi.ca
- Aisle 12, sir, between the greeting cards and stationary.
February 06 2012
However tempting, DO NOT use your 3D printer for evil
Robotic Moth-Bee by Gwygonik
Thingiverse citizen Gwygonik published a post on his website to accompany the above robotic moth-bee designed by his wife. From his post:
“So once I started printing things, my sci-fi loving wife’s eyes sparkled (more than normal) and she had a ‘we can replace every plastic piece in the house with something custom’ moment. What I love about her is this was immediately followed by ‘you could drive someone mad with real subtle changes, too.’”
Of all of the potentially mischievous uses of a 3D printer, this is the most creative I’ve heard to date. This could even be automated to a certain extent. It would be fun to shrink someone’s office supplies. Heck, it’s not inconceivable that someone could scan in someone else’s objects, then scan the objects they will morph into, create a stream of intermediary 3D models, and slowly replace someone’s beloved coffee mug with a sculpture of a jackalope.
January 24 2012
“Things” on The Pirate Bay
Here at MakerBot, we make open source hardware and we freely share digital designs for our products on Thingiverse.com. As a business, we strive to be a model for the bold companies of the 21st century that embrace sharing. You can download the design files for the things we sell on Thingiverse.com.
We created Thingiverse to be the digital design sharing utopia of our dreams. Thingiverse.com integrates with open licenses that encourages Thingiverse users to let others copy and change their work so that others can stand on their shoulders and create the products of tomorrow and the solutions for the next generation. Every day I look on Thingiverse and say “Wow!” when I see the new things that have been shared. People who upload designs to Thingiverse are my heroes.
Things, and digital designs for things, are very different than other types of media. Copyright doesn’t work the same way on things as it does with music, movies, and books. If you’re into exploring the intellectual property landscape of things, you need to read “It will be awesome if they don’t screw it up” by Michael Weinberg.
The Pirate Bay announcement of a new category for digital designs is interesting because it’s another place where people can share digital designs for real things. As a technology, torrents are particularly great for super mega giant files because they distribute the downloading load and I’m curious to see what kinds of things will begin to show up in that category. Because The Pirate Bay takes a bold, no-holds-barred approach to sharing, I’m sure there will be controversies as companies and people who long for the proprietary days of the 20th century come to terms with the raw power of contemporary sharing technology. Cue squeaking of the world’s tiniest violin.
In the contemporary age of sharing, those who share will be the leaders of tomorrow. The sharers will be the ones who will emerge in the 21st century as winners in the rapidly changing innovative landscape. I’ve consistently advised individuals and companies to push their comfort level and share more. If you have a company that feels threatened by the idea of someone sharing digital designs for your products, I suggest you join the sharing community and share those design files yourself on Thingiverse.com.
January 09 2012
Introducing The MakerBot Replicator™
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 10, 2012 (Brooklyn, NY) – MakerBot Industries is excited to announce the launch of its latest product, The MakerBot Replicator™, which will debut at CES in Las Vegas, NV on Tuesday, January 10th. Available in the MakerBot store for pre-order today!
The MakerBot Replicator™ is the ultimate personal 3D printer, with MakerBot Dualstrusion™ (2-color printing) and a bigger printing footprint, giving you the superpower to print things BIG! Assembled in Brooklyn by skilled technicians, the MakerBot Replicator™ is ready within minutes to start printing right out of the box. Starting at $1749, The MakerBot Replicator™ is an affordable, open source 3D printer that is compact enough to sit on your desktop. Want to print in two colors? Choose the Dualstrusion™ option!
With a build envelope that’s roughly the size of a loaf of bread, The MakerBot Replicator™ gives you the power to go big. Make an entire chess set with the press of a button. Friends, classmates, co-workers, and family will see the things you make and say “Wow!”
The MakerBot Replicator™ creates anything you can imagine with the new MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK8, the extruder is the part of the machine that turns raw feedstock, like ABS (what Lego® is made of) or PLA (a biodegradable material made from corn), into the objects you desire. You can order your MakerBot Replicator™ with single or dual MakerBot Stepstruders on it. By choosing the dual extrusion option, you’ll print with two different colors at the same time. MakerBot Dualstrusion™ unlocks the ability to make beautiful combinations of colors and opens the door to experimenting with with multi-material objects.
The MakerBot Replicator™ is ideal for personalized manufacturing, providing a new way to make the things you want and need. It is also an essential tool for children and students; parents and educators with a MakerBot Replicator™ offer the next generation an opportunity to learn the digital designing skills required to solve the problems of the future. Students with access to a MakerBot have an edge in the future job market. Just like the youth of the 1980’s, who had access to computers, children with access to a MakerBot Replicator™ will become the leaders who make a better tomorrow.
The MakerBot Replicator™ is the tool from tomorrow, today. In the two years since the company was founded, the capabilities of a MakerBot have grown from printing cupcake-sized objects in 2009 to printing things as large as an entire loaf of bread today on on the MakerBot Replicator™. MakerBot Industries continues to demonstrate its dedication to putting the tools of creativity into the hands of the those brilliant and bold enough to bring their imagination into the physical world.
Press Kit: View and download photos of The MakerBot Replicator™
View product specs and pre-order your MakerBot Replicator™ today!
November 26 2011
Modelers Wanted for TEDxYouth@Flanders Shells
Thingizen deeeep conducted a Project Shellter workshop at TEDxYouth@Flanders last week. The enthusiastic kids envisioned all sorts of fantastical shells for hermit crabs. Now they need to be modeled so they can be printed and introduced to the crabitats!
Will the Karshellians like a multi-room shell? Will Paris Shellton dare to wear a shell adorned with wings? There’s only one way to find out: empirical science!
Are you a Blender ninja or a Sketchup wizard? Maybe your Maya-fu is legendary. If you’re looking for a unique challenge please consider helping out by modeling one of the drawings produced at the workshop.
Drop a comment here if you take on the challenge then upload a finished model to Thingiverse and tag it with shellter.
The kids and crabs thank you!
Follow, share and contribute to help save hermit crabs by keeping natural shells in the wild! Use the hashtag #shellter:
- projectshellter.com
- @ProjectShellter
- @ShellterEast
- @ShellterWest
- Thingiverse
- bit.ly/ProjectShellter
- bit.ly/ProjectShellterVideos
This guest post is part of Project Shellter
November 14 2011
NY Times Ponders Copyrighting Physical Things
The New York Times addresses the issue of copyrighting physical objects on their Bits Blog, and of course, mentions MakerBot. In what they he calls Industrial Revolution 2.0, the Times’ Nick Bilton looks at the impact of 3D printing on the future of manufacturing, and on the idea of ownership in general.
Unlike music, movies, or books, printed objects typically cannot be copyrighted because they are useful items rather than simply aesthetic ones. Bilton uses the example of a coffee mug to illustrate his point. Who knows what the future holds, but for now, keep printing those coffee mugs! Trust me, I went to Ikea yesterday, and I would rather print my own mug any day than wait in that line!
November 02 2011
A MakerBot in Every Classroom!
Here at MakerBot, we believe that children are our future. Imagine what your life would be like if you had owned a MakerBot as a kid!
The media is picking up on this idea too. Check out this piece in Forbes, and this one in the Wall Street Journal, covering MakerBot’s mission to get Thing-O-Matics into the hands of the next generation.
MakerBot is already in a number of schools around the U.S., including New York City public and private school teachers and NSF funded GK12 fellows from NYU-Poly University. Want to get MakerBotting on the curriculum at your or your child’s school? Email education@makerbot.com and check out our sample curriculum here.
October 15 2011
MIC CHK! Print Your Own Megaphone
Miles Lightwood, AKA, TeamTeamUSA is in town doing an artist in residency in the MakerBot Industries workshop. He arrived into town and we wandered over to check out Occupy Wall Street and we got a chance to hear Tom Morello, who’s part of Rage Against the Machine and is righteous. They are using the human megaphone technique since they aren’t allowed to use electric amplification. The way it works is speaker says MIC CHECK and everyone who can hear them repeats it and one sentence at a time gets repeated so that the speaker can be heard.
Miles was inspired to make MIK CHK, a megaphone to extend the range of the human microphone technique. Miles modelled up a clip that connects a coffee cup and two manilla folders and adds a comfortable grip. Viola! You’ve got yourself a MIK CHK megaphone that will extend the range of the human microphone technique.
Download it and go be heard!
September 12 2011
What would you do with a bionic eye?
What would you do with a bionic eye?
Tony Buser posted his own take on the “MakerBot Goggles” phenomena where you see everything as DIY 3D printable:
I think I’ve discovered a corollary to MakerBot Goggles – Spinscan Goggles. Now everything I see I wonder if I can scan and MakerBot a copy.
Making a rote copy and merely duplicating an existing object can definitely be useful. What I find more interesting is being able to scan a physical object in the world around you and manipulate the 3D image to be remixed into something even more useful.
So, if you were wearing your own Spinscan Goggles, what would you want to scan and duplicate? What would you want to scan and mashup or remix?
June 17 2011
Erik Beck and Justin Johnson Immortalized!
Erik Beck is a video making machine! We had him by with Justin Johnson, another video-otron to the MakerBot Botcave to immortalize them in 3D by scanning them with the Polhemus 3D scanner!
Download Erik here and Justin here!
April 01 2011
MakerBot Introduces 3D Printable Vinyl Records
After months of intensive research and development, MakerBot Industries is proud to announce a newly realized capacity of the MakerBot Thing-O-Matic 3D Printer- the ability to print listenable vinyl records from the desktop.
“The process of transcribing an audio file into a vinyl record is so simple, anyone can do it.” Said Chief Audio Engineer Isaac Dietz. “Right now, I’m using the Automated Build Platform to rip my entire MP3 collection to individual records!”
“It’s an exciting innovation for MakerBot, as we all grew up listening to vinyl. We all wish that more records were available with the latest hits,” said Audio R&D Associate Marisol Murphy. “I can never get enough Justin Bieber or Rebecca Black until I listened to them on my turntable.”
The process utilizes the MakerBot 96khz AudioNozzle™ technology to print audio waveforms in real time. Using the MakerBot Generation 4 Electronics microstepping capacity, the AudioNozzle™ modulates the amount of plastic deposited to create a high-fidelity waveform. The results often surpass the dynamic range of 24-bit recordings and can contain frequencies up to 57khz — even higher than the Nyquist frequency for 96khz digital recording. You can even record directly to your 3D Printer by attaching a microphone to your computer, and singing into it.
Says Ethan Hartman, Vice President of Audio Operations: “MakerBot’s pioneering spirit has always hearkened back to early inventors like Thomas Edison. We are honored to be able to re-invent the audio record for the personal manufacturing space in the burgeoning 20-teens.”
Pre-orders for the 96khz AudioNozzle™ will be available shortly.
MakerBot 3D Printed Vinyl Records can be downloaded from Thingiverse here.
March 09 2011
Nylon 3D-printed Bicycle Featured on BBC
Nylon Bicycle on BBC
Take a look at this coverage of a Bristol-based engineering outfit that have released a nylon, 3D-printed bicycle to demonstrate the strength of 3D printed products to British manufacturing industry. The vid contains an excellent demonstration of selective laser sintering applied to a much classier model than you typically see supplied by the industry.
The discussion at end about the potential role for 3D printing to bring manufacturing back to the UK by closing the gap between innovation and end product is also worth a listen. And it mirrors conversations I’ve had with DIY 3D printing evangelists about the economic opportunities offered by local, small scale 3D-printed manufacture as a way to eliminate off-shore manufacture and boost local economies.
I’d also like to mention that I have received a number of support emails today asking when a MakerBot designed affordable selective laser sintering product will be available…..
March 08 2011
3D Printing An Organ – Live Onstage at TED
Well, we have been hearing about the 3D printing of organs for a while — and there are reports that a MakerBot Operator with a heavily modified Cupcake is engaging in this very work: printing plastic scaffolding for stem-cell “curing” of organs.1
Here is a great talk about the present practice and future potential of 3D bioprinting.
- Or as Marty in the Botcave has just said it — “rafting an organ on a 3D printer.”
March 04 2011
Avison Young Meets the Democratization of Manufacturing
Check out Michael Fonda’s Blog post about his experience at the BotCave: “Democratization of Manufacturing”
As it sometimes happens, I am working at my desk, and one of my coworkers taps me on the shoulder, and I hear a now familiar phrase- “Isaac, we have guests!” This is my cue for me to give a walk through tour, and run down as many salient points about MakerBot as I can pull from memory. Last Friday I walked up to the front of the BotCave and was greeted by Michael and Tyler Fonda, who were on a quest to learn about the 3D Printing sphere, and visiting Brooklyn.
They had both recently read The Economist’s cover story on 3D Printing, and wanted to gauge for themselves the possible impact 3D Printing will have on manufacturing. Michael works for Avison Young, a real estate company that often caters to manufacturing industries. His son Tyler, is a Director of Strategy for Gotham and was doing his strategic due diligence on 3D printing.
Michael wrote a post about his experience at the BotCave, and it’s an interesting perspective on their experience, and his view of the potential impacts of 3D Printing.
“Suddenly, the future came into focus as I visualized how my sister-in-law and her husband would utilize 3D printing in their sunglass business Centerline Optics. They would no longer have to source product from China. No more ordering months in advance of their selling season. No supply chain risk of political upheaval in China, of a lost TEU on the Pacific Ocean, of a longshoremen’s strike at the Port of Long Beach, a diesel fuel spike that drives up the cost of transporting the product across the North American continent. All design, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and sales would happen out of the Centerline “headquarters” in Old Lyme, Connecticut. Centerline’s customers are all within four hours of the “headquarters”. Talk about efficient allocation of resources.”
Check out Michael’s original post here.
February 17 2011
3D Preview in your browser on Thingiverse!
Tony Buser’s Thingiview.js is an in-browser 3D file viewer powered by WebGL. If you have a WebGL-enabled browser, you can view 3D files in your browser almost as fast as viewing them with a desktop application.
Now, Thingiview.js is available on Thingiverse! Just look for the little 
cube icon next to the thumbnails for any STL file. For example:
As a bonus, and as shown above, you can embed Thingiviews into your own pages! Each Thingiview page has an “Embed This Thing” button, which gives you the HTML to copy-and-paste into your site. You can even customize the colors!
If your current web browser doesn’t support WebGL, you might want to try the latest Google Chrome, which has WebGL support built in, or check out the latest Firefox and Safari betas.
The ability to preview 3D files in-browser has been on our wishlist for a while so it is great to be able to get this feature into the hands of the citizens of Thingiverse!
Please keep in mind that Thingiview is an experimental feature. If you run into any files that don’t work, please let us know!
January 04 2011
Why did I print it? Because it was there
Desktop Equipment Tilt / Angle Foot by aaronkondziela
This Desktop Equipment Tilt / Angle Foot by aaronkondziela is one of my new favorite things on Thingiverse. Here’s his explanation:
I needed something to tilt my desktop music synths up at an angle, so that I didn’t have to lean over them to see all the controls. Normally, I’d throw a chunk of wood under them, but I didn’t have any suitable pieces. This foot is the result.
Believe it or not, we now live in a world where it’s easier to design some custom footie-bits for your personal robot crank out than it is for you to go look for a chunk of wood on which to prop your equipment.
I mean, this is the kind of no-brainer Star Trek characters face. “You want me to what? Look for a piece of wood? Are you kidding me? Ugh – that seems like such a hassle. Why don’t I just whip something up? I mean, the machine is right there…”
January 03 2011
Printing to the power of 101
Nophead's plate of Huxley RepRap parts
A little while ago I asked what would you do with double the printing capacity of a 3D printer.
Here’s a better question, what would you do with more than a 100 times the printing capacity? Nophead, author of the excellent HydraRaptor blog, recently announced he printed 101 full sets of RepRap Mendel plastic parts over the course of the last year. He’s essentially also answered an interesting practical question – how fast can a RepRap 3D printer replicate plastic parts under human supervision? 1 While he used his CNC mill with a printer head, HydraRaptor, this hardly diminishes the accomplishment. Printing that many sets of parts takes a lot of dedication and time.
Now that we’ve thought about what is possible with two 3D printers, Nophead’s achievement raises so many new and wonderful questions:
- What would you do with 102 printers? 2
- What would you do with 1 printer and 101 friends who also had printers? 3
- What would happen to 101 brilliant start-ups if they were each given a printer, a computer, and a pile of plastic?
- What would happen to 101 brilliant and disadvantaged students if they were each given a printer, a computer, and a large pile of plastic?
- What would happen to 101 poor villages across the globe that suddenly had access to a printer, a computer, and a large pile of plastic?4
- He states that these 101 sets were printed over about 4800 hours, so perhaps 47.5 hours per set?
- The original one plus the 101 children.
- Don’t have 101 friends? Pssh. I’ve seen your Facebook profile.
- I think the transformation could be on par with something like the Universal Sheller from the Full Belly Project
December 31 2010
2011 3D Printing Predictions
When we first started MakerBot, we were most interested in what individuals would do with access to a 3D printer. Thingiverse shows everyday that amazing things are possible with this new tool. The question I’ve been asking myself is what can a community of 3000 MakerBot Operators do together? Last night on my personal blog I made some predictions for 2011 and two have to do with MakerBot Operators.
- The community of more than 3000 MakerBot Operators will do something on a global scale. I’m not sure what, but I feel it coming.
- Someone will upload a digital design to Thingiverse that will have an impact on lives in places where there isn’t a daily postal service. Not sure what, but got a feeling about this one too.
My predictions are pretty vague, but I can feel the potential energy of the community. I just know that the MakerBot community is going to do some special things in 2011. Got any ideas for giant collaborative or world changing projects? Post them in the comments!
This morning Joris over at i.materialize posted eleven predictions about 3D printing on TechCrunch.
- Makerbot will sell more than 10,000 3D printers in 2011.
- Bre Pettis will appear on the cover of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine in 2011.
- A designer will have revenues of over one million US dollars with a single 3D printed product in 2011.
- Both Stratasys and Objet will release $5000 desktop 3D printers at Euromold 2011.
- Zcorp & EOS will be the only major 3D printer manufacturers not to offer a desktop 3D printer in 2011.
- 3D Systems will launch a 3D printing service for consumers in 2011.
- At least five 3D printing startups aimed at consumers will launch during 2011.
- Adobe will buy Autodesk in 2011.
- Microsoft buys Dassault Systemes in 2011.
- 3D modeling software vendors will start to offer “light 3D printing” versions of their products
- 3D printed products will win at least two Red Dot Design Awards in 2011.
In 2009, we sold 750 MakerBots and in 2010, we’ve sold 2300 MakerBots. 10,000 more MakerBots is a pretty wild prediction, but it might just happen if 3D printing keeps going the direction it’s going! Joris’ predictions match up with my feelings that 2011 will see a lot of action in the 3D printing space!
I’d love to hear what your 3D printing predictions for 2011 are. Drop a note in the comments!
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