Printrbot, just successfully crowd-funded by Lincoln, California resident Brook Drumm, bills itself as an all-in-one 3D printer kit that “can be assembled and printing in a couple of hours.” Hack a Day’s Brian Benchoff gives a cogent technical analysis. Apart from the Kickstarter itself, Mr. Drumm maintains a Flickr set, a Vimeo account, and a fledgling blog dedicated to the project.
When I reached my hand into the virtual MAKE Secret Santa hat and drew the name Nick Normal, I knew I needed to pick something special, thoughtful, and creative, because Nick is all of those things. I also knew that it should complement his very own Normalmeme: the (sometimes) recursive 3D printed Nick Normal bust that is all the rage.
I drew Adam Flaherty for my MAKE Secret Santa. Here he is pictured toasting with Marc de Vinck at FOO camp. He’s a gadget enthusiast, and when I ran into him in the O’Reilly parking lot in Sebastopol, CA last week, he was holding a 2-liter bottle solar lantern – it looked like a bottle of light, and I’m excited to see him document his build based on this previous post.
Ohio IT professional Rick Pollack founded MakerGear, LLC in 2009 to “develop products and services for the rapidly expanding maker community with a focus on advancing digital fabrication.” Working with wife Karen, Rick has already brought two fully-developed desktop 3D printers to market—a well-regarded Prusa Mendel kit and their flagship design, the Mosaic—as well as a line of accessories and upgrades for each.
At MAKE, we’re crazy for kits. That’s why we just produced a special issue that’s all about kits, our Ultimate Kit Guide 2012, and are also launching a new website dedicated to kit reviews, at kits.makezine.com. Available at newsstands nationwide, the Ultimate Kit Guide includes nearly 200 reviews of top kits ranging from beginner’s crafts to wooden kayaks to advanced robotics to alcoholic beverages and everything in between.
Back in 2009, my colleague John Park published his Florence Siphon coffee brewing apparatus in MAKE Volume 17. That’s him, above, goggling up before disengaging the safety interlocks on his infernal machine. I have had the pleasure of meeting John Park on several occassions, but even if I only knew him through his hyped-up internet rockstar persona, a few things would still be obvious. For instance, he is irritatingly good-looking. Also, he takes his beverages pretty damn seriously.
This year, along with the gift of spacetime simultaneity, we decide to give the gift of virtuality. (It’s high-concept holidays here at MAKE!) We’re playing Secret Santa amongst the Makezine staff, but we’re not actually giving each other presents. The idea is to pick a staffmember’s name from a hat, think about something you think […]
