Flashback: Rainbow Pots for St. Patrick’s Day
We’re feeling lucky as we craft these rainbow painted pots for St. Patrick’s Day. Make some pretty pots of your own today on CRAFT!
Month: March 2013
The Internet of Living Things
One of my big dreams is to communicate fluently with animals. I’m completely aware of how crazy that might sound. In fact, that’s why I almost never discuss or admit to it. It seems too far out there for most people.
But does it really seems that far fetched? When my grandparents were my age, I don’t think they ever could have imagined that they would be able to have video calls with someone halfway around the world or access to so much of the world’s information at the tip of their fingers. It’s impossible to predict where the technology might evolve.
Last week at TED, the interspecies communication movement recieved a huge boost. An unlikely team of Peter Gabriel, Vint Cerf, Diana Reiss, and Neil Gershenfeld (the intellectual godfather of the Maker Movement) announced their plans for an interspecies internet. My heart soared!
Roll Your Own Crowdfunding: The Scout Story
Recently, we unveiled our Scout pre-order site to the world. Scout is a hassle-free, do-it-yourself home security system. You can check it out at www.scoutalarm.com. We took a gamble with the Scout project and “rolled our own” crowdfunding site. Similar to Lockitron, Scout would not be allowed on Kickstarter since our products haven’t been produced yet, so we had to forgo that avenue for fundraising and strike out on our own. Luckily, Lockitron made our path a little easier by open sourcing its project.
The Scout project is, thus far, not wildly oversubscribed like Lockitron, but we’re doing well for being two weeks in. What we’ve realized in the process is that there’s not a lot of information available on what it takes to roll your own crowdfunding site. We’re one of only a handful of companies that has taken a shot at it, so we want to pass along what we’re learning as we go. Hopefully, this post will make it a little easier for the next company that follows behind us.
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How-To: Wicked Kicks
Defy a bit of gravity with a pair of awesome DIY wicked kicks shoes!
Busy Retiree’s Filament Extruder Wins Fabrication Competition
Last year, at Maker Faire in San Mateo, we launched a global competition to find ways to reduce the cost of producing parts on a 3D printer that uses plastic filament as its feedstock.
3D printing holds great promise for prototyping and small-volume production, but it has the potential for high volume production as well. Over time, the software interfaces that control these machines will improve, the number of files available for printing will increase exponentially, and the precision of the machines will be indistinguishable from parts made on an injection molding machine. However, to become competitive with conventional manufacturing processes, the unit cost of each part produced by 3D printers must be reduced.
Low-cost 3D printing, including Up! Plus, Makerbot’s Replicator II, Cubify, Printrbot, Solidoodle, and the Ultimaker, range in price from $399-$2200. These machines require extruded plastic filament that costs about $40-$54 per kg. This is between 5-10 times the cost of the raw resin pellets.
How-To: Make Four Leaf Clover Stamps with Toilet Paper Tubes
Making St. Patrick’s Day crafting plans with your little ones? Make your own easy four leaf clover stamps with toilet paper rolls!
