makerbot

The Makeys Have Landed

The Makeys Have Landed

We just got our first peek at the 2011 Makeys trophies, designed and printed by our pals at MakerBot Industries, and we couldn’t be more pleased with the results. Thanks to Jonathan Monaghan for the design work, Matt Griffin for running the printers, Keith Ozar for coordinating it all, and everybody else at MakerBot who helped out. Naturally, the STL files are available on Thingiverse to remix at your leisure. As you can see, “Makey” is built Mr. Potato Head-style, but right now he’s a bit short on accessories…

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan
Maker Wedding Enlightenment

Maker Wedding Enlightenment

Earlier this summer, Brett was working on a nifty 3 LED and 2 AAA battery holder design at the Boston Area Makerbot meetup. We get together when enough people feel the need, generally at Sprout in Somerville. When we got together again this week, he was able to happily report on the project and the role his making played in the big day.

The initial plan was to use throwies, but I felt they wouldn’t give as much light as a commercial 3 LED solution. This led me to a fun, albeit time consuming project.

Continue Reading Chris Connors2
Printing your Kinect scans on a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic

Printing your Kinect scans on a MakerBot Thing-O-Matic

I got my hands on a Kinect a while back (thanks to Ashley Burns of Waggener Edstrom for sending me one to mess around with), and I’ve been itching to scan something and print it on my MakerBot Thing-O-Matic. I got as far as scanning things with Kyle McDonald’s KinectToStl, but as I have no skills with 3d modeling software, I had no clue how to turn it into something printable. I tried printing some of the STL files I got out of that tool, but they were way too complex. With some open source software, a few simple steps, and an occasional not-so-simple-step here and there, you can print what your Kinect can see.

Continue Reading Brian Jepson

Attaching Motors (and Attaching to Motors)

Recently, we’ve been messing about with motors and gears at Pemtech. Students in one of my classes are building an underwater ROV, and we don’t have any decent propellers. Rather than shop for them, we’re fabbing our own with the laser cutter and Makerbot. Earlier this week, Jett worked out the proper dimensions to fit a plate to a motor shaft. He did this by measuring out a range of holes and then cutting them in quarter inch acrlyic. Once they came out of the laser, he tried pushing the motor into each of the holes until he found the ‘goldilocks fit.’ Once we had a plate, he used the same process to cut a series of holes in the plate that could be threaded with M3 screws. This setup allows us to attach anything to a motor.

Continue Reading Chris Connors4
Polite houseguests print and repair

Polite houseguests print and repair

Last night I was out on an adventure. In the morning, the shower curtain fell down because the pole was a bit too short. After I pulled the paper towel tube shim out, I tried to twist the rod to lengthen it. Since it was maxed out, it needed a little something special to help make ends meet.

When I went downstairs, I took a few extra steps out to the car, got the Makerbot and returned to fire up the computer with Sketchup. It took two iterations to get the dimensions right. The new part came out sized to fit over the end of the curtain rod and take up a bit of the gap.

Continue Reading Chris Connors38