The Replicator is MakerBot's latest, greatest desktop device with two color printing, 5 liters of printing volume, and a price tag ($1999) that may make it ideal for the classroom.

Three years ago they had three employees and were still trying to keep their equipment from breaking down. Now MakerBot employs 75, has millions in funding, and 7500+ of their printers in use. The Brooklyn-based company is the epitome of a successful tech startup, all the more remarkable because their devices are completely open source hardware – free for anyone to build or modify on their own. MakerBot hopes to continue their phenomenal growth of the past few years by starting off 2012 with a bang. They’ve just released the Replicator, a bigger and badder 3D printing bot that can produce almost anything out of hard plastic up to the size of about a loaf of bread. It can even use two colors at once. The winner of the Best Emerging Tech Award at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, the Replicator is just one of the many ways in which MakerBot is staying on top of the 3D printing world.

There are many different 3D printing companies out there. Most deal with the high-end of the market – producing models and prototypes for designers and engineers. MakerBot wants 3D printing accessible to everyone. Their printers are considerably cheaper than the competition (just $1099 for the Thing-o-Matic), fit on a desktop, and are relatively easy to use. The Replicator continues in that tradition, it costs a little more ($1749 or $1999) but is able to print much larger objects – up to 225x145x150mm (~9x 6 x 6 inches). That’s a printing volume of up to about 5 liters – probably the biggest consumer-level printer available, and definitely a huge volume for household use. The Replicator can also come with two extruders, allowing users to print in two different color plastics during the same build. Bre Pettis, one of the founders of MakerBot, introduces the Replicator in the video below, followed by a more detailed look at how one goes about printing something on their new MakerBot 3D printer:

Alongside devices like the Replicator and Thing-o-Matic, MakerBot also has a hand in the software side of 3D printing. Before they ever sold a printer they created Thingiverse, the online depot for 3D digital designs. Users create virtual objects on their computers, upload them to Thingiverse, and thousands of other users all over the world can download the design and print it out. Pettis says that “Thingiverse is exploding” and to date has more than 15,000 “things”. That number is actually a few thousand larger if you include variations that users share to help improve designs. Exponentially growing, fun, and friendly, Thingiverse shows how the 3D printing community is thriving with every new printer sold.

According to Bre Pettis, 2012 should see that growth continue and even push into new arenas. Perhaps the biggest focus is on educational applications. Before he was a 3D printing guru, Pettis was a teacher for seven years, serving tours of duty in middle school art and K-5 classes. It’s no wonder then that MakerBot already has a pilot program in Brooklyn to see how such devices work in the classroom, and will likely expand such tests in the years ahead. MakerBot has a dedicated site for sharing 3D printing curriculum and the company regularly receives interest from buyers who wish to purchase a printer for a school. In 2012, MakerBot is definitely aiming to get more and better 3D printers in the hands of children. As Pettis puts it: “the Replicator is as perfect for the classroom as it is for industrial engineers.” Ten and eleven year olds excited by the fun of 3D printing will also be exposed to digital design, programming, and electronics. As children create and learn, they’ll be able to see their imaginations come to life with the alternating errors and glories that accompany such unrestricted exploration. Pettis says that 3D printing “let’s you fail in a really wonderful way”, and that is a sure-fire recipe for inspiring interest in science, technology, and engineering.

What else is in store for MakerBot in the future? Pettis foresees more competition arriving from new companies interested in marketing 3D printers directly to consumers. To stay ahead of the curve, MakerBot will “keep innovating…keep trying out stupid things until we can add something that works…it’s the pursuit of excellence that makes us satisfied.” Pettis likens the expanding 3D printer market to the smart phone industry, with MakerBot producing the high-end, versatile, and must-have devices that users will want even as competitors explore cheaper or more specialized options. To that end, 2012 will see improvements in MakerBot software, making it easier to use. Pettis says the company is also looking to hire 30 or so new employees, expanding the company by more than 25%. That bigger team should be able to deal with the growth in community that is sure to follow the Replicator’s ship out date in a few weeks.

Looking even farther into the future, Pettis sees some really wonderful possibilities for MakerBot and 3D printing in general. They’ve already worked with NASA on a polymer project (though it didn’t pan out) and Pettis would love to see a MakerBot device on the International Space Station, then eventually on the Moon and Mars. There may also be applications in the military, and other extreme environments. Really, there’s no limit to where a versatile and relatively small 3D printer could be applied, especially one that is open source hardware and backed by a growing community of designers/users. That community is only going to get bigger, better, and more creative as hundreds (if not thousands) of Replicators are bought in the months ahead.

I’ll leave you with a wonderful and heart warming example of the creativity that home 3D printing can inspire. The stop motion animated video below was shot using models printed by MakerBot devices and follows something of the company’s “if we’re going to do this, let’s do this all the way” attitude.

[image and video credits: MakerBot Industries]
[source: MakerBot Industries, Bre Pettis]

$10 million is going to make a lot of MakerBots. I can't wait.

Holy replicating robots, Batman! MakerBot has raised $10 million in venture funding! The New York based startup makes open source desktop scale 3D printers and is helping build a community of enthusiasts to bring the technology into the mainstream. Through sales and open distribution of their designs, MakerBot has put 5200+ of their printers in the world. Now, they’re going to do a whole lot more. Their latest round of investments brought interest from some major hitters in the tech-world: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (already an angel investor), Foundry Group, True Ventures, and RRE. $10 million is a phenomenal boost for any open source business, but it may serve especially well here as MakerBot is one of only a handful of companies in the world successfully bringing 3D printing out of specialized industrial applications and into the hands of the individual. With this investment we’ll hopefully see MakerBot transform desktop 3D printing from a novelty to a widespread technology we all want to own.

As part of their outreach to spread the word about desktop 3D printing, MakerBot co-founder Bre Pettis recently appeared on The Colbert Report and printed out a copy of Stephen Colbert’s head. MakerBot and the show then made the design for Stephen’s visage public. Soon, Colbert’s fans were uploading a variety of head-themed objects to Thingiverse, the online community forum for 3D printable designs. Not to be outdone, the MakerBot team printed out their own copy of Colbert’s noggin and launched it into space using a weather balloon! Check out Pettis’s appearance on the Colbert Report and the subsequent space launch in the two videos below.

While the venture funding round and Stephen Colbert’s head aren’t directly related, there’s nothing that says “we’re a multi-million dollar company” quite like a space launch. The MakerBot twist is that this launch really demonstrates how tech-savvy and value-minded the company really is. Hacking together a space launch with parts you can buy online isn’t new, but these guys do it well, and they make it look easy.

Which is hopefully something their new (and returning) investors will appreciate. Besides bringing Brad Feld of the Foundry Group on as a member of the board of directors, it looks like the team at MakerBot is staying intact. Their job postings are growing, however, especially in those positions directly related to getting more MakerBots out into the world. “Productors (sic)”, customer support technicians, public relation specialists – this is a group gearing up to put more of their product out there and put it out as fast as possible.

History shows that MakerBot should be able to do this pretty damn well. They started off on the equivalent of a shoe-string budget – just $75k from their initial investors (Jake Lodwick and RepRap’s Adrian Bowyer). Now there are more than five thousand MakerBot machines out there. Their latest 3D printer, the Thing-o-Matic, sells for $1300 as a kit or $2500 fully customized and assembled. It has a three to four weak lead time – a sign that MakerBot needs to expand to meet demand. Another sign of their success is Thingiverse, which has thousands of 3D designs shared openly between users. From nuts and bolts to beanie hats, Thingiverse is a growing depository of stuff that anyone should be able to print out once they purchase (or build) their own Thing-o-Matic. When calculating the value of MakerBot you have to include this vibrant and expanding community they’ve created around their 3D printers. Investing in a $1300 piece of hardware makes a lot more sense when you know it comes with an open invitation to join a group of enthusiasts, small businesses, and wackos that share in your same fascination with 3D printing.

The big question this round of venture funding raises then, isn’t whether or not MakerBot will use the money wisely to expand and grow quickly. What we should be asking is “will MakerBot be the one?” Is $10 million enough to push MakerBot from quirky company in Brooklyn to the brand that will bring desktop 3D printing to the masses. We’ve seen others try to make that move. Stratsys is really targeted towards business applications, they have great technology, but their entry level 3D printer is $15k. RepRap is a phenomenal open source project that, like MakerBot, can print most of the parts needed to build a new 3D printer (we’re getting closer to self-replication every year). Yet RepRap isn’t selling its own printers, so they’re simply not going to get the same kind of investments that MakerBot will. MakerBot may be the only company in the right position to ramp up from five thousand machines to fifty thousand machines in the next few years.

Despite recent advances, we’re probably a decade or more away from 3D printers that every single person on the planet will want to own. When they can produce electronics, fabric, and metal there won’t be a household in the US that wouldn’t crave a 3D printer. Long before we get there, however, we need a company that can get the devices into as many tech-savvy hands as possible so that the technology can be developed alongside a community that will come up with (profitable?) applications as it evolves. MakerBot just received $10 million worth of votes that it’s the company for the job. I really hope they are. Any group that can considers launching celebrity heads into space a fun way to pass an afternoon is a group I want in charge of building the future.

Kudos MakerBot, and keep up the good work!

[image credit: MakerBot]
[video credits: MakerBot, Colbert Report]
[sources: MakerBot Blog]

RepRap is a DIY 3D printer that allows hobbyists to bring their ideas to reality

The 3D printer has come of age….well, almost. Let’s just say that after a tough hit from the recession, the 3D printer industry is back with a vengeance. Low-end sub-$1000 DIY projects to commercial prototyping printers that cost in the millions are finding more uses among a growing base of amateur and professional users alike. Prices are dropping, fabrication is easier, and interest is building as tech fans begin to explore the seemingly endless possibilities. While they aren’t a common household item yet, what does the future hold for 3D printers in say a decade from now? Things look very promising. In fact, 3D printers may become the new must-have gadget for artists, entrepreneurs, or anyone who needs a simple replacement part.

To prove that this is more than just a pipe dream, consider that the commercial industry reached $1.325 billion in 2010, according to a recent report by Wohlers Associates.  This is up 24.1% from a weak 2009 that saw a 10% drop from 2008 numbers due to the recession. Since the beginning of the industry in 1988, the compound annual growth rate is 26.2%. Projections say that by 2020, the industry will almost quadruple to $5.2 billion. Now these numbers may have difficulty accounting for the other burgeoning arenas of the 3D printing world, including amateurs and hobbyists, or some of the related technologies based on very similar principles, like bio-printers that can print functional kidneys, for example. Still the numbers provide a good baseline upon which we can estimate the size of the market and its potential growth.

But to put all this progress into perspective, a little history is in order. The first 3D printer was produced by Charles Hull in 1984, who utilized a patented stereolithography method for the print process. The basic approach for 3D printing is to create a layer of polymer for the desired 2D slice, cure that area, and then repeat to build layer-upon-layer. Hull’s technique involved creating a 0.0025-inch layer of liquid photocurable polymer that could be cured with a UV laser. In 1988, the first commercially available 3D printer was officially launched by 3D Systems called SLA-250, which utilized a photo-optical acrylic resin. In the early 1990s, a number of other methods were developed, including fused deposition modeling that extruded thermoplastics for layering and multi-jet modeling, based on ink-jet printer technology. Techniques have also been developed that use powder and lasers. Over time, a multitude of companies across the world have sprung up offering their high-end printers combined with CAD software and scanners, allowing objects to be either scanned or designed from scratch.

So what are some uses for those high end machines? For designers, it allows incredibly accurate prototypes to be generated rapidly, cheaper, and in house. The marketing industry, which often outsources prototypes, can also benefit from similar rapid prototyping technology to create high quality, focus group models or pre-production sales demos. Engineers are using them to generate durable, high precision parts, such as the Boeing Phantom Ray unmanned stealth vehicle, which has 3D fabricated parts. One company, i.materialise, is even fabricating objects out of titanium. Even mid-range printers are coming into demand, such as Dimension’s uPrint 3D printer, which starts at around $15,000 and produces objects that are 40% stronger than previously obtainable.

One of the most fascinating developments with the additive fabrication technology is how it is transforming the world of art. At the recent RAPID 2011 additive manufacturing conference (videos are here), a variety of contemporary art made from 3D printing were on display. You can check out the gallery here.

While the expensive 3D printers are out of reach for the average person, enormous strides have made 3D printing even more accessible to all. As with many other technologies, we have the DIY community to thank for it. Low-end devices, such as MakerBot, RepRap, eMaker, PP3DP, and the new micro3D printer, are pushing the low end barrier from $650 to $1,800. RepRap and its variants are notable because RepRap is an open-source project, and designers contribute their CAD files openly, allowing others to print with them or even modify the designs. But the bottom line is that many enthusiasts are pushing the technology into new areas, finding cheaper ways of doing things, and showcasing all that they can imagine. Because commercial 3D printers are continually dropping in price as demand increases, it is only a matter of time before a company is able to undersell these DIY devices, which is good for everyone.

The Circle of Life, created with a 3D printer by Prof. Mary Hale Visser.

One of the most exciting things about emergent technology is personal empowerment. Take Apple’s iPad — it is a personal technological tool that can be used by everyone from artists finding new ways of expressing themselves to doctors trying to save a patient’s life and at the same time, be incredibly practical for reading blogs or online banking. 3D printing offers something akin to this broad versatility and immense practicality. It allows anyone to make their ideas into real physical objects.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are an entrepreneur that has come up with a very simple widget. You’ve designed it and now you want to sell it. One route is to contact a manufacturer, order units in the thousands, store the goods, and then set up a shop on the internet to push your inventory. Another route is to obtain a 3D printer and print on-demand widgets from eBay sales or an online store. This route saves time, money, and provides the versatility to customize your design or tweak it without losing inventory. The potential to turn your own home into a manufacturing facility exists today, so imagine what 10 years of growth in this industry will produce.

Clearly, a lot of excitement is building about 3D printers. Stories of interesting fabs are attracting media, such as the man who printed out a replacement house key. As the technology becomes smaller, more affordable and easier to use, the barrier to entry will ultimately drop and many people will find themselves with their very own 3D printer. Whether it sits to collect dust like their exercise equipment or they become the next success story is completely up to them and their creativity.

[Images: RAPID, RepRap]

[Sources: Advertising and Marketing Review, Discovery, Make, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, Wohlers Associates, WonderHowTo]

This CupCake CNC frame was made entirely out of plastic printed on a CupCake CNC. Awesome.

Makerbot‘s 3D printer is starting to clone itself. Earlier this summer, Christian Arno (aka Webca) used the CupCake CNC to print out the frame for…another CupCake CNC. Usually made of wood, Webca’s printer frame was built entirely of the plastic that the CupCake CNC uses for printing, held together by copious amounts of hot glue. It took Webca a month of solid printing to create the parts. Judging by the comments on the Makerbot blog, this is the first time that someone has made a CupCake CNC frame entirely from CupCake CNC manufactured plastic pieces. This isn’t true self-replication (the electronic and metal components weren’t printed by the machine) but it is an awesome step in that direction. Makerbot has joined RepRap in the ranks of devices that can (partially) copy themselves. Long live the self-replicating open source 3D printer revolution!

Makerbot’s CupCake CNC is an open source project, and as such the specs for building it have been online for some time. Generally, however, those who want to build their own CupCake CNC are expected to assemble its frame from pieces of wood (typically cut out with a laser cutter). Webca constructed a layer by layer model of the CupCake CNC frame so that he could print the pieces out instead. His designs (along with more pictures) are available on Makerbot’s community website dedicated to 3D printing projects (called Thingiverse). Webca’s accomplishment is made all the more impressive by the fact that he is just an enthusiastic user – he’s not affiliated or employed by Makerbot Industries. Yet he has done what (apparently) no one there had the time to do: give the Makerbot community the ability to replicate the machine using it’s own printing.

There are still major hurdles to be cleared on the path to self-replication, however. Few printers (including the CupCake CNC) can create more than plastic parts. While we have seen stainless steel printing, most metals are still far from accessible, and the semi-conductors needed for printing electronics seem many years off (though some progress is being made there too). Also, none of these printers come equipped with robotic arms, and until they are you can expect that every ‘self-replicating’ machine is still going to require a lot of human labor to assemble.

Will that labor be worth it? Self-replication is really the Holy Grail of 3D printing. When it is finally accomplished, users will be able to make machines for their friends, spreading the use of the devices like a virus. They will also allow individual users to generate entire swarms of the devices for their own use. It’s unclear, however, what purpose those machines will have in our homes. The capabilities of these devices are likely to be limited, even the advanced generations of CupCake CNCs and RepRaps are unlikely to exceed the manufacturing prowess of true commercial factories. Even when your friend can make you one, household 3D printers may simply stay as they are at the moment: a really fun hobby. Or they could give us a flexibility in creation and shared production that could have a serious impact on how we buy cheap goods, even how we make art. For now, it’s just cool to see that open source projects like Makerbot are inspiring users in amazing accomplishments that elevate the community as a whole. Kudos to Webca, and I can’t wait to see who prints a CupCake CNC next.

[image credit: Webca]
[source: Thingiverse]

uPrint, Stratasys' inexpensive 3D Printer, may be getting a new HP label this year.

Of course, if an HP 3D printer ever makes it into the personal market it won’t be alone. Today, both MakerBot and RepRap sell 3D printers for your home for less than $1000. In fact, either company will even help you build your own. Now, these hacker-style machines can’t print much bigger than 4″x4″x6″, which is smaller than the sizes available to commercial devices. They also don’t have the same flash or style. There’s no fancy housing, LCD interfaces, or noise dampening. Still, they print in three dimensions and that’s what people want, right?

Well, it’s unclear what the exact market for 3D printers is at the moment. Certainly the community of do-it-yourself hobbyist is an enthusiastic one, and MakerBot is selling 1800+ printers a year. But even at $1000 a piece (a high estimate), that’s only about 1% of Stratasys sales. The real money seems to be professional design. Companies with engineers, architects, and graphic artists – these are the groups that can afford to spend $15k+ to have easy access to 3D printing.

HP hasn’t released any particular information about the actual price of their Stratasys printers. That news is expected in the second half of the year. Most speculate that the HP printer will be a repackaging of the uPrint. That machine costs $14,900, can print objects up to 8″x6″x6″ in size, and uses fused deposition modeling to print objects out of ABS plastic.

For the next 90 days (from Jan 19, 2010) you can hear more details about the agreement between the two companies by listening to the hour long phone conference. From that conference we know HP is gaining the option to purchase millions in Stratasys shares. We also know that Stratasys is looking for major growth in the next five years. Stratasys anticipates increasing from 2000 to 5000 systems sold per year in the short term. They hope that five years will have them become a $500 million revenue company, shipping 50,000 units per year. That’s a big ramp up. And it depends on HP bringing their new 3D printers to a global market fairly soon. Right now, HP plans on an initial roll out for the printer in just five select countries: UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, and France. That’s a temporary bummer for us here in the US.

Getting a powerhouse like HP into the 3D printing game is an important step towards increasing the popularity of the technology. HP was one of the pioneers (and still probably the biggest name) in over-sized 2D printing. They could bring similar success to three dimensional plastic models. All that is good, but I’m really hoping that increased sales will directly translate into increased budgets for research. Moving away from plastics and into other materials will finally get us to be able to print electromechanical devices. Xerox has a silver ink, and Shapeways a stainless steel powder, that could lead to printing circuits. Maybe HP’s success could help accelerate those technologies so that in a few years we could be printing 3D printers. It’s this self-replicating dream that is driving MakerBot, RepRap, and other hobbyists. If HP picks up on it success could happen much sooner. So, good luck to HP and Stratasys. I’m very unlikely to buy their new product, but I have big hopes for where it may eventually lead

[image credit: Stratasys]

Zack Hoeken (left), Bre Pettis (right) and the CupCake CNC (lower left) made a great presentation at Google's New York office.

I’m pretty jealous of my friends at Google because they get to hear some of the most interesting people in the World give talks just for them. Luckily, the big G is friendly enough to share videos of those talks with the rest of us. As part of the Innovators at Google program, Bre Pettis and Zack Hoeken, two of the founders of MakerBot gave a cool presentation earlier in the year. MakerBot is an open source desktop 3D printing company and community that lets users design, share, and create their ideas in plastic. They are very cool guys and we have their Google presentation with Q&A session for you below.

3D printing is interesting in its own right – you can make all sorts of cool objects. MakerBot’s Cupcake CNC printer is small enough to fit happily on your desk but still powerful enough to build models, cogs, and jewelry. The really cool possibilities, however, begin when you consider self replicating machines. Working alongside other teams, such as RepRap, MakerBot is helping edge their way closer to creating a machine that can build other machines. Once we have that capability our world may see every form of technology become available to everyone. That’s a distant goal, but people like Pettis and Hoeken are helping to take the first baby steps in its direction.

If you’re new to 3D printing, never heard of MakerBots, or just really like watching fun presentations, go ahead and enjoy all 50 minutes of the video. Of course, we’re not going to force you to do that. I mean, I think I have the only boss in the world that doesn’t mind me spending an hour just watching videos on Singularity Hub. Here are some highlights to help you browse:

• 3:12 MakerBot’s 3D printer, the Cupcake CNC, is portable, easily moved, and has made the rounds from city to city. Which leads to the coolest quote of the presentation, “Alcohol and Robots: a great combination.” The desktop device is actually small enough to fit in a Pelican case and travel on commercial planes (16:03).
• 4:23 Cool video of making a Darth Vader mask out of black ABS plastic. Is the Imperial March actually being played by the Cupcake’s motors? Awesome.
• Bre and Zack see 3D printing in the grander scheme of science fiction promises. Starting near 6:20 they put forth their argument that MakerBot is on the path to succeed as a replicator (as seen on Star Trek). A friend even printed out an object in Germany faster than it could be shipped – teleporter! (21:20)
• MakerBot is very committed to being open source (11:00). All the hardware parts, the designs, and the software are as accessible and hackable as they can make it. Tech details (13:45) are free online, and they use GPL licensing (35:15). Their next big project will likely be a 3D scanner (42:20) which will also be open source and will hopefully work seamlessly with the CupCake CNC.
• While MakerBot is unable to create objects in a conductive medium, like Shapeways 3D Stainless Steel printing, it does have a variety of available materials (23:08). Conductive materials are a possibility (47:17) but will undoubtedly take a while to produce.
• Just for laughs, check out the pyromania at 24:08, and learn why Lego lets them print out replacement blocks without a lawsuit (44:00).

Part of the fun of this entire presentation is watching the enthusiasm bubble out of Pettis and Hoeken. They obviously love what they do and it clearly is infectious among the likes of Google employees. Right now, self replicating machines are only a dream, and many may point to their power as a possible nightmare. Devices that could make infinite copies of themselves could easily be corrupted into a weapon of mass destruction. Looking at MakerBot, their open source dedication, and their love of their community, I am made hopeful that the future of replication is likely to be a rosy one.

Spawn More Makerbots!

Well, rather than encouraging others to point and laugh, Makerbot has decided to turn a problem into a cool opportunity for all of you do-it-yourselfers out there. A critical pulley is slowing down production, so Makerbot is asking owners of their 3D printers to create a few of these pulleys and get paid for their trouble. That’s right, Makerbot is introducing the world to crowdsourcing, a way of decentralizing production over a large set of independent individuals. Not satisfied with merely being open sourced and community minded, Makerbot is now seeking to turn customers into freelance builders.

We’ve been impressed with Makerbot since we started covering desktop 3D printers. Their Cupcake CNC, the first printer design, is fairly robust and is able to produce almost any shape you can draft that is less than 4″ x 4″x 6″. The plastic extrusion process is similar to industrial 3D printing techniques used by other companies. Check out an introduction to Makerbot’s CupCake CNC in the video from Rocketboom Tech after the break.

For those looking to make some quick cash, the Makerbot pulley proposal is probably not the way to go. Sure, the profits margins are high: each pulley will cost you around $0.11 in raw materials but will be purchased at $1 each (in sets of 30). The CupCake CNC costs $750, however. Making 840 pulleys, at 18 minutes a pop…yeah, you’re not going to break even quickly here.

The 608 Idler Pulley - Sell it to Makerbot for a dollar.

But if you’re one of the 200 or so people who has already purchased a CupCake CNC, or if you were thinking of doing so anyway, this is a great opportunity. Not because of the money, certainly, but because of the possibilities that will arise if crowdsourcing succeeds. Bre Pettis, Zach Smith, and Adam Mayer, the powers that be at Makerbot, are hoping that this experiment in production will lead to more and more parts being crowdsourced. Eventually, as the capabilities of the CupCake CNC are improved, the entire product could be made in this fashion. A 3D printer that could print 3D printers has really been the goal all along.

Makerbot isn’t at the forefront of 3D printing, they can’t print stainless steel for instance, and their social networking model isn’t particularly innovative. Like other companies they have a blog, and a shared design gallery called the Thingiverse. What makes Makerbot so cool is that it’s 3D printing in your own home. I’m really excited that Pettis is leveraging what makes Makerbot unique: every time they sell a printer, they’ve created a manufacturer…maybe even a business partner.

Whether or not crowdsourcing works, we’ll eventually have self replicating desktop robots. It would be really amazing if those robots came from the DIY community, so I’m rooting for Makerbot’s pulley project to succeed. Unfortunately, I won’t be involved personally because my laser printer broke while trying to print $750 cash. Happens to everybody, right?

[photo credit: Crain's New York]

Above: The Reprap Machine Connected To A Computer With A 3D Specification

The Reprap machine works like this:  Reprap consists of a roughly cubical half-meter frame enclosing its fabrication workspace, motors, electronic circuitry and an extruder.  The extruder is a device that can squirt out complex three-dimensional patterns of molten plastic filaments that will ultimately solidify into the shape of your 3D object.  Software on a PC takes design files produced by 3-D drawing programs and turns them into instructions that are sent to the Reprap over a USB connection.

This is really about as good as it gets if you are a geek.  Its like having a mini factory in your own home.  I personally can’t wait to get my hands on one of these little miracles.  So what can you make with a Reprap machine anyway?

The only limits seem to be your imagination and the physical limitations of the material, currently plastic, that is used to manufacture your object.  Repraps have been used to make coat hooks, water-filter inserts, sandals, door handles, fly swatters, martini glasses, and countless other objects.  See some examples below:

It all began with Dr Adrian Bowyer, a senior lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom, who founded and invented RepRap in 2004.  Reprap was launched as a project to build an open source (ie. GPL), low cost, 3D printer capable of printing objects of any specification, including a specification for printing itself.  Since the launch of the Reprap nearly 5 years ago, the project has absolutely exploded with volunteers, prototypes, and a worldwide fanbase that is ever growing and changing.  

Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager at Google Inc. , quoted on the Reprap website, sums it all up with this little gem:

“Think of RepRap as a China on your desktop”.

Although the current Reprap is only capable of using plastic as its building material, upcoming versions will be able to use a host of different materials, opening the door to a greatly expanded world of 3D printing.

The ultimate goal of the Reprap is for it to be able to self replicate a true working replica of itself.  In this regard the Reprap is making steady progress.  From the Reprap website:

Not counting nuts and bolts RepRap can make 60% of its parts; the other parts are designed to be cheaply available everywhere.  To increase that 60%, the next version of RepRap will be able to make its own electric circuitry – a technology we have already proved experimentally - though not its electronic chips. After that we’ll look to doing transistors with it, and so on…

Even as Adrian Bowyer’s Reprap project continues to flourish, a dynamic community of volunteers, organizations and companies have begun to sprout up around it.  Of special note is the Reprap Research Foundation (RRRF), of which Bowyer is a director.  The RRRF is the not for profit arm of the Reprap movement tasked with upholding the following mission:

To promote research in self-replicating manufacturing systems and to distribute the results of that research freely to everybody using open-source licensing.

On the commercial side of things, check out an exciting new company, Makerbot Industries, who counts as one of its founders Zack Hoeken, a director at the RRRF and a major player on the Reprap scene.  Makerbot Industries offers a limited but expanding suite of tools, gadgets, and consulting that will empower a growing legion of enthusiasts to make the most of their Reprap experience.  Check out this video of the Makerbot team:

Still haven’t seen enough?  Check out the following more detailed video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfnLtbhxsY4

Don’t feel like hacking all this equipment yourself?  Remember there are companies like Shapeways will mail you within days a 3D printout of specifications that you upload to their website.