Calling Makers: Emergency Dome Needed!

We wondered what Effalo's next project might be, and now we know for certain: It's a much larger geodesic dome, apparently to be used in a music video. Unfortunately, according to Michael Felix, principal of MakerFactory, they have less than two weeks to produce the dome and their extruder is broken! They've posted a series of work units to MakerFactory asking makers from around the world the produce the required parts for this project - and they'll pay you for them, typically about USD$1 per piece plus incidentals. 

 

The dome is larger, approximately six meters across and will require many hundreds of parts, so this is clearly a job for a group of makers. In all there are some 420 parts required, plus precision-cut wooden dowels if you're able to produce those, too. MakerFactory prefers local builders to keep shipping costs low, and that means Brooklyn, New York in this case. If you have an idle 3D printer and want to make some cash, check out the links below. 

 

Via Vimeo and MakerFactory

Ten Year Old Speaks on 3D Printing

3D Printing always gets people excited whenever we mention it, and this excitement is all over. Consider the YouTube video of ten year old Schuyler St. Leger speaking at Ignite Phoenix, in which he describes with some passion his thoughts on 3D printing and the maker community. His hugely entertaining talk is definitely worth viewing. 

 

Via Youtube (Hat tip to Cathy)

What Can I Make For You?

There's another option for makers to keep their fabbers running: What Can I Make For You? is a web service that links consumers to makers. The service solicits requests for, well, anything, from consumers. The service attempts to match the request against someone from their pool of makers. 

 

This small five person San Francisco-based operation clearly focuses on items made with conventional techniques, so it's possible that 3D Printing makers might be a relatively unique offering within their pool. From the site:

 

Attention All Amazing Makers: Do you want to be included in our network of custom makers we use to create all the unique product requests we get?

 

To become a member, you must apply. We suspect the operators of WCIMFY try to maintain a list of quality makers within each making category from which they make selections to match up with clients. 

 

The details on their site are a little thin, so we spoke to VP of Marketing Anthony who answered our questions.

 

Fabbaloo: How long has the service been operating? How many makers/clients served, etc?

WhatCanIMakeForYou: We have been in operating our site for a little over two months with great response from both consumers and makers worldwide. We are currently receiving roughly 100 requests per week by consumers looking for custom made products. Our database of makers that we use to fulfill these requests is also growing every day. We had a large rush of roughly one hundred makers at launch and are now adding roughly 80 makers a week. Our makers are everyone including artists, woodsman, tailors, web designers, etc.

 

FB: How do the finances work? What do clients pay? How much does a maker receive?

WCIMFY: When a request comes in to our site, we offer it to multiple makers. After seeing the availability and price quotes from the multiple makers we choose a maker who can 1) provide the best product, 2) delivery in a timely manner, and 3) offer it at the lowest price. That is the maker who "wins" the project. Upon completion and delivery of the product our website pays the maker the quote price. The consumer who requested the product pays the website the price quote along with a % fee for our services.

  

FB: What kind of items are requested? Would 3D Printer operators fit into your service?

WCIMFY: You name it, we have seen it. We get a wide array of types of projects. We get standard requests for furniture and apparel, but we also get requests for custom keyboards, statues, toys, etc. I definitely do see 3D printers providing value to consumers we get. With a feature from your blog and the inclusion of 3D Printer operators in our database, I do anticipate consumers using our site for their 3d printing needs.

 

We really like the incredibly simple approach, just like Google: it's a box and you just type in what you want. 

 

Bottom line: This seems to be another stop for makers looking for clients, along with 100KGarages, Ponoko and other distributed manufacturing initiatives. We recommend you give them a try, and let us know how it goes. 

  

Via What Can I Make For You?

MakerFactory.com

As often is the case, and experiment leads to a hobby, leads to a business and sometimes to a multinational corporation. In this case the experiment was Vernon Effalo's effort to build a dome. He required a large number of dodecahedrons and simply outsourced it to other makers, which eventually enabled him to complete the dome. According to Michael Felix, MakerFactory principal:

 

We had a release party in one of the domes and it collapsed due to rain weight. no one was hurt, thankfully!

 

Effalo's successful experiment has now led to the formalization of this approach in his venture, MakerFactory. MakerFactory seems to be somewhere between the hobby and business stage. From the site:

 

MAKERFACTORY is a free service for connecting the emerging network of localized fabrication technologies with people like you who need stuff 3d printed, CNC’ed, or otherwise made.

 

Here's how it works: you post a "job" and then makers worldwide bid on producing the item or portions thereof. The poster then accepts a bid and objects emerge from fabrication devices. 

 

We think this is a necessary service to fit on top of the hugely growing 3D print community, as more and more people find themselves equipped with MakerBots, RepRaps, Up!s and Fab@Homes. The sweet spot for MakerFactory seems to be the case where a large quantity of prints are required, so long as the build time for printed objects remains long. 

 

Congrats to MakerFactory and the Effalo team for making it happen! 

 

Via MakerFactory

MakerFaire Video

Take a look at a great video from the recent MakerFaire where: 

• Bre Prettis of MakerBot provides a brief explanation of their hobby 3D printer
• Jeffrey Lipton of the Fab at Home project explains the unique features of their printer, which is capable of printing electronics or even batteries. 
• Max Freeman of Alibre - demonstrates their USD$99 Windows-based 3D modelling software, which provides capabilities normally found in much more expensive software. 

 

Via YouTube and P2P Foundation

MakerBot Calibration Hoedown

Members of Kansas City's Cowtown Computer Congress had an unusual event: 3D Printer Calibration Night. That's right, members brought in their MakerBot 3D printers in an effort to properly calibrate their heater barrels, which are notoriously tricky to set right. 

 

Half a dozen MakerBots and a couple of RepRaps appear to be present in the images, where members shared tips on how to get their heater barrel thermocouples properly calibrated. 

 

A great exercise, to be sure, but it does suggest an issue in the world of home 3D Printing: standardization. MakerBots, RepRaps and the like certainly have common designs, but there is variability in the components used, configuration parameters and in the manner of assembly. These minor differences result in differences in the resulting printed objects. This suggests that objects printed on one printer may have issues fitting with those from other printers, as shown in the image above.

 

What's the answer? We're not sure, but it probably will involve more standardized components, more assembly-tolerant designs and perhaps even calibration objects specifically to test compatibility between printers. 

  

Via The Cowtown Computer Congress

Image Credit: Nadya Peek

Maker Culture

Great article on Maker Culture from Re/Creating Tampa, where they contrast 21st Century maker activities with historical events in the United States. They explain how inventions were largely the domain of the individual (think Benjamin Franklin, Eli Whitney, etc.) These renowned "individual gadgeteers" made a truly significant difference in the history of the United States and other nations through their genius. 

 

Strangely, in the mid 20th Century the world shifted to assembly lines and centralized manufacturing. The inventive individual became an oddity. 

 

An oddity until today, when we find individual genius on the rise again, this time powered by high-tech personal manufacturing equipment and software. 

 

Via Re/Creating Tampa

Pleasant Tuning of a MakerBot

Pleasant Hardware's blog deals with the nuts and bolts of 3D printing, and recently they've been doing experiments with their MakerBot. One of the experiments involves printing "without a raft". The raft is that cross-hatch base layer used to isolate the object from the build platform itself. Their advice:

I recently started with printing objects without a raft (another thing not really advisable without a heated build surface).

Printing without a raft is still tricky, especially when printing complex shapes (like tooth wheels or something like that). So I started with more or less rectangular objects.

Removing the raft obviously saves wasted material, but also simplifies the finishing process since you don't need to shave the raft off your shiny object.

We are truly encouraged by this type of activity; not so much because we have another iPod dock printed, but because it represents something very important: home-based 3D printing is slowly being tuned by not only Pleasant Hardware, but by many others too. The crowd is improving MakerBot, little by little.

Where will we be in a year?

Via Pleasant Hardware