Maker Pro

Maker Pros are the innovators that are designing tomorrow’s products and businesses. Stay tuned for the latest news on manufacturing, startups, and industry trends.

Space Still Available for Bay Area “Make it in America” Exhibit

Space Still Available for Bay Area “Make it in America” Exhibit

California Congresswoman Jackie Speier is organizing a showcase of U.S.-made products June 15-16 during the San Mateo County Fair. The “Make it in America” exhibit will host 15-20 U.S. companies with homegrown production, specifically the Bay Area. The range of products is wide–surgical robots, jelly beans, wine, and electric cars. And there are a few slots left. The exhibit aims to be educational and is free to participating companies, but direct sales are not allowed in the exhibit area. The purpose of the exhibit is to show that U.S. manufacturing yields several benefits including increased employment and technological innovation.

Continue Reading Stett Holbrook

3D Printing Goes Mainstream

Engadget Expand, a two-day event of presentations, consumer electronics, and innovation, kicked off today at Fort Mason in San Francisco. The first panel discussion was “3D Printing Goes Mainstream” and it featured Ari Reichental, president and CEO of 3D Systems; Hod Lipson, associate professor of engineering at Cornell University; and Max Lobovsky, president and CEO of Formlabs.

In truth, the panel discussion would have better called “3D Printing Will go Mainstream When…” Because as all the panelists agreed, while 3D printing is big and getting bigger we’re still in the early adopter stage and seamless consumer interface has not yet been achieved. That’s the killer app, they agreed.

Continue Reading Stett Holbrook6
Makies

Alice Taylor: Inventing the Future of Toys

Alice Taylor is CEO of Makielab, a London-based startup that 3D prints customised action dolls called Makies. Customers design their doll on the Makie website, choosing facial features, hairstyles, eye and skin colour, and selecting outfits and accessories. The dolls – fully-poseable, and about 10 inches tall are then printed in London and shipped out. For the Makie and Alice, that’s the beginning of a long adventure.

I spoke to Alice about the adventure that she and Makielab have been on, playing with toys, working with geeks, and bringing 3D printing to the masses.

Continue Reading Andrew Sleigh10
Sneak Peek: Board Forge Pick & Place

Sneak Peek: Board Forge Pick & Place

Born out of a collaboration at famed Chicago hackerspace Pumping Station One, Board Forge is a six-person startup developing a prosumer-grade, open-source circuit board assembly robot. This weekend at SXSW Create, I got a chance to snap a few photos of their prototype version 1.0 while chatting with founder Jeff McAlvay about the democratization of industrial electronics assembly equipment.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan4
What Happens When Your Kickstarter Fails?

What Happens When Your Kickstarter Fails?

Andrew Deagon, Steve Frehn, and Ian Schaser were inspired to create NeckFX after Andrew dreamed up the idea while recovering from knee surgery (Because you know…pain meds). NeckFX is a custom attachment for guitars that light up LEDs as the guitar is played. While I don’t play the guitar (or have any musical ability what so ever) an LED powered guitar seems pretty cool to me. They built a few prototypes like the one shown in the video and even sold them to bands and musicians. They launched a Kickstarter campaign in hopes of raising enough money to ramp up production and really scale up their maker business.

But it didn’t work out that way.

Continue Reading Stephen Murphey22