MakerBot announced a new service called MakerBot CloudPrint, which is intended to deliver a seamless 3D printing experience to clients. MakerBot Print Up to now MakerBot 3D printer operators would use MakerBot Print to prepare and schedule jobs for attached MakerBot devices. That tool has been around for several years, and it’s proven to be…
Using a series of post-processing techniques like sanding, painting, gluing, and mold-forming, you can easily make your 3D printed projects look just like their store-bought counterparts — ideal for when presenting realistic “looks like” prototypes to clients or coworkers. From sanding and gluing all the way to crafting different molds and finally painting the objects, MakerBot’s…
I’m a bit giddy. It would seem the spirit of open source is alive and well at MakerBot… Well, as much as it can be for a corporate-owned, publically-traded entity beholden to shareholder demands and selling product shrouded in IP protection. Be that as it may, for the first time in a long time, we’re…
Headphones. They’re a modern necessity for many of today’s workers and, in many cases, have become the universal sign for “don’t bother me right now.” But as convenient as they are, they can be kind of annoying when it comes to keeping your desk uncluttered. Headphone stands usually tend to do the trick, but how…
Our last post on MakerBot’s new print software spurred on some conversation, internally and via email. One consistent concern we get from MakerBot Replicator owners, and questions we ask as Replicator owners considering their new products, are, “Has Stratasys put effort into making MakerBot’s work more reliably and consistently?” and, “Do the new products work…
Update – MakerBot has published an update to change the language of the MakerBot Print EULA. Just last week, MakerBot announced a new product lineup—hardware and software included—geared towards professionals and educators that MakerBot CEO Jonathan Jaglom said was the result of a “cultural shift” at the company as they gained further insight into the…
If there’s one thing that MakerBot has learned over the course of its short existence, it’s that you can’t please them all. While early adopters seeking a well-rounded user experience for 3D printing at home welcomed MakerBot’s push towards a cohesive ecosystem, those in the Open Source–heavy DIY community pushed back as the company attempted…
The consumer 3D printing landscape has changed dramatically since MakerBot Industries stormed onto the scene in January of 2009. While any new company can expect its fair share of ups and downs, navigating the rocky road of lofty consumer expectations for 3D printers – combined with a surge of competitors from nearly all corners of…
The Smoth Mealer (pictured above) has been doing a lot of 3D printing lately. He has some thoughts he’d like to share.
It’s not surprising that using additive manufacturing to create large-scale objects – such as chairs – hasn’t really taken off; between the size of a 3D printer needed combined with the cost of filament, you may as well truck over to your nearest Design Within Reach and pick up your favorite Herman Miller or Eames.…
Without surprise, this year’s annual NYC 3D printing extravaganza has been the biggest, ever. After starting from humble roots with just a few tables and a sparse speaker offering less than five years ago, the Inside 3D Printing show has since expanded into a multiple-event showcase that features over a week of curated activities, presentations…
The Zeni Kinetic Origin series of 3D printers are Designed for the future. A future where the 3D printer becomes a common appliance in homes and offices. With the Origin series, the Zeni Kinetic is bringing out well-designed and good looking 3D printers at a price range that is much more affordable to most of…
As MakerBot announced that they were unrolling new features and products into their expanding ecosystem during CES 2015, one of the biggest gaping holes in their platform was making the entire 3D printing experience more social. Between the legions of new 3D printing enthusiasts to existing user groups and Makerspaces, the social activity has been…
Rather than unveiling any new hardware last week at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2015) in Las Vegas, MakerBot quietly announced a wide array of ecosystem updates to make their platform more useful to a wider variety of users. Considering that their range of existing FDM 3D printer models are still among the most technologically…
Although they’ve been on the market for awhile as a 3D printer manufacturer now, MakerBot has been up to a lot more than just creating glorified hot glue guns that create colorful vases and toys. In addition to their recent partnerships with global brands including Sesame Street, Hello Kitty, Martha Stewart and more recently, Hoover…
When it comes to partnering up with existing brands to enable users to create 3D printable products and accessories within their own homes, MakerBot has been on the forefront of showing us what that future might look like. Between their partnerships with brands such as Sesame Street, Hello Kitty and even Martha Stewart, their MakerBot…
Although 3D printer sales have grown exponentially in the past few years, the cost of purchasing a desktop 3D printer hasn’t changed drastically enough for a new generation of ‘non-prosumers’ to wholeheartedly adopt the technology yet. While on-demand services such as Shapeways promise the same results (or better), the lack of instant gratification leaves much…
When it comes to adopting new technologies, master homemaker Martha Stewart is up there among the best and most comfortable in not only using the new technologies, but also finding unique ways of using them. Among other methods of adoption, the iconic media personality and lifestyle icon has used a drone to plot out her…
Between the Shapeways-Façade that Hasbro has set up for experimenting with the customized fabrication of My Little Pony dolls to Sesame Street’s decision to grab hands with MakerBot to create extruded yellow ooey-gooey plastic Big Birds, it’s no secret that toy brands and manufacturers are lining up in droves to cash in on this ‘3D…
Earlier this year SolidSmack reported on ‘Print the Legend’, a feature-length documentary that focused on the 3D printing revolution and what has become of it. Starting today, the film will be available on Netflix as one of their ‘Netflix Original’ documentaries. The film focuses on the rise of consumer-friendly 3D printer manufacturers MakerBot and Formlabs…
We’ve been known to like GrabCAD a whole lot here on SolidSmack. While the list of reasons ‘why’ is quite long, we can sum it up by saying that similar to our friend Al Dean over at Develop3D, we have been believers in the company from day one and have enjoyed watching it grow up…
When MakerBot Industries was founded by Adam Mayer, Bre Pettis and Zach “Hoeken” Smith in early 2009, few (especially Adam, Bre and Zach) could have ever expected that the company would have taken off as much as it has. With a handful of ‘MakerBot boutiques’, store-within-a-store deals with Microsoft and Home Depot, a huge factory…
As one of the easiest way to have an uninterrupted, fluid 3D printing experience, the FLEKS3D Build-Plate System is a designer’s dream come true. The design resolves 3 major issues with 3D printing, namely – getting the printed object off the build-plate with ease, getting us a good grip on the build-plate for no warping…
Being touted as “a revolution in consumer 3D printing”, the newly-announced Solidoodle Press is Solidoodle’s answer for those seeking a true plug-and-play machine in a sleek and space-saving enclosed package. With the goal of creating a seamless user experience for the consumer 3D printer market, the Press includes a re-engineered internal setup that makes the…
Aiming to be the ‘One-Stop Shop’ for all your 3D printing needs, iMakr has been met with an enthusiastic response since opening their first store in London in 2013. Since the opening, they have expanded their online store to include everything from an expansive range of 3D printers to fit any budget as well as…
I swore I would never buy a Replicator 2 — I don’t trust companies led with charisma. Then the sleepless nights began. I couldn’t get the beautiful black metal chassis out of my head. Three point leveling. That squirrel cage extrusion cooling fan…yowzahs. Finally, after many a late night sneaking out of bed and into the study…
In case you missed the release last week of MODO 801, there were some announcements made that might be of interest to all you product designers who might still be on the fence with jumping into MODO or not. The new 801 release of the powerful modeling and rendering tool aims to make working with…
Been tinkering with some science fiction-inspired car designs in your spare time? Local Motors has just announced their 3D Printed Car Design Challenge with $10,000 in prize money if you think you might have the next great 3D printed car idea. Also known as the Direct Digital Manufactured Vehicle (DDMV), the challenge aims to eliminate…
Premiering next week at SXSW in Austin, Print the Legend is set to be the first non-YouTube documentary that focuses on the rise of the 3D Printing community and the stories we’ve come to read almost weekly that go with it. Featuring in-depth footage of 3D printing newsmakers ranging from Bre Pettis to Cody Wilson…
We’re always talking about the future of design, the future of technology, the future of MAKING. In a world where smart cars will drive themselves in rush hour traffic, a world where 3D printing is enabling the blind to experience outer space through touch…how do we find the next ‘big thing’? Maker Galaxy is a…
With no signs of slowing down (and currently hiring up the wazzoo), MakerBot extended their reach further into the university system last week with the opening of the very first MakerBot Innovation Center at the SUNY campus in Upstate New York. Perhaps they couldn’t have chosen a better school either: the SUNY campus in New…
It’s only day one of the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but this year has already shaped up to be the most exciting year thus far for 3D printing enthusiasts. Among other announcements, MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis has unveiled what will certainly be an exciting addition to their lineup of 3D printers—which have…
When looking at companies embracing the 3D printing movement, it’s hard to deny that Microsoft is taking large strides towards making their products more seamless in the 3D printing experience for the mass market. With the combination of introducing native 3D printing support into their recent Windows 8.1 update—a first for an operating system—to the…
This past Friday, 40 of the world’s top experts in digital and interactive art, data visualization, software art, 3D printing, augmented reality, and other digital art and design applications converged on the stage at The New School in NYC’s Greenwich Village for LISA 2013 (Leaders in Software and Art) to discuss their projects, where these…
Putting a 3D printer in the back of a car might not be that revolutionary, but considering what kind of power that could put into the hands of various service people? Now that’s getting interesting. From plumbers to electricians and even general contractors, the ability to have on-demand part production on-site could rapidly speed up…
Recently, we reported that MakerBot was expanding their retail empire to include ‘mini-stores’ within over nearly 20 Microsoft stores stretched across the United States. At the moment, their only standalone brick and mortar is their iconic New York City store where they have resided for just over a year now. Today it was announced that…
When the MakerBot Digitizer was announced a few weeks ago, it was considered a milestone for bringing 3D scanning to the masses. Could it be that a better and cheaper 3D scanner will be entering the market before Christmas as well? The Rubicon 3D Scanner is the Indiegogo project launched yesterday that aims to lop…
Hot off the heels of their announcement that they’ll be setting up shop within the cozy confines of Microsoft retail stores across the US, MakerBot has also just announced that they’ll be releasing their coveted 3D scanner next week. According to their announcement via their mailing list, MakerBot has “optimized the whole process to work…
Today, MakerBot quietly announced that they’ll be opening ‘mini-stores’ (similar to the mini-Apple Stores within Best Buy locations) at Microsoft retail stores featuring a full-on ‘MakerBot Experience’. Prior to this announcement, the only way to get the ‘MakerBot Experience’ was to attend a MakerFaire, go to a 3D printing industry event, attend a school or…
Shower rings? iPhone cases? Banana Hooks? Watering Spouts? Whatever products you might create on your 3D printer as an alternative to purchasing said products, researchers at Michigan Technological University have determined that after a years’ time, you will most likely have paid for the 3D printer in money saved alone. Ultimately, this brings up perhaps…
Outside of Need for Speed and other driving simulator videogames, the knowledge of ‘real’ manual transmission driving is dying out with younger generations of drivers. Ford engineer Zachary Nelson is aiming to change all that with a new 3D printed shift knob that tells you when to shift based on haptic feedback—essentially creating the physical…
Reverse that Z-axis and cool the extruders. The print beds of the 3D Printing scene are amalgamating into a massive prosumer platform with two 3D Print manufacturers joining forces. Two weeks ago we reported on the rumored acquisition of MakerBot. Our first guess was Stratasys and although we thought that it was “highly unlikely that…
The low hum of 3D printers echoed through the historic warehouse in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park District this morning as MakerBot ‘Productors’ were busy at work building Replicator 2’s and 2X’s. Today, Bre Pettis and NYC city representatives presented the all new MakerBot Factory…a two-story 50,000 sq ft warehouse filled with nothing but…you guessed it…MakerBots up…
Hold on tight to your filament reels and don your Maker goggles. The Wall Street Journal has reported that MakerBot has been in acquisition talks with unnamed suitors, according to their sources. Who could it be? Stratasys could benefit from the acquisition and offer printers similar to their Mojo line for the Indie Maker crowd…
File this under your ‘good uses for 3D printing’ stack. The Local Motors Lab Team has been actively using the MakerBot Replicator 2 3D Printer to print prototypes, scale-down versions of parts, and smaller replicated pieces. Lo and behold, one of these sample parts actually found it’s way onto the Rally Fighter as a final…
After having raised over $8 million on Kickstarter ($8,596,474 to be exact) from the original goal of $950,000, the wildly successful OUYA open-source video game console will be launching with a bang from San Francisco this week. In celebration of the launch, OUYA teamed up with MakerBot and Thingiverse to offer the option to 3D…
You recall Makerbot’s Shapeshot that grabs shots of your cranial casing and meshes it in mere seconds for you to print? Well, low and behold, Makerbot has now announced their desktop 3D scanner, the Makerbot Digitizer. Bre Pettis announced the news of the prototype on stage at the keynote kicking off this year’s SXSW event,…
Just after Sandboxr was scheduled to launch their own creature creator app February 1st, Autodesk has sprouted another tentacle from its 123D app portfolio and introduced Autodesk 123D Creature. Yes, you can model your own creature in the discomfort of an office chair during a meeting, but guess what? You can also send it off…
148 brains have been drained of their futuristic spacecraft-inventing potential over the last month. Who is to blame? Makerbot and GrabCAD. The Makerbot Replicator 2 Design Challenge just finished up at GrabCAD and the winners have been selected. The challenge was to create a 2040 vehicle design. Most of the entries are fabulous designs and…
The Replicator 2 has been screaming around the 3D printing industry’s racetrack as a go-to solution for both professionals and consumer hobbyists alike. MakerBot has capitalized on profiling the MakerBot users who are using their Replicator 2’s to do something outside of the box and have found success in doing so. Here’s an inspiring story…