Motorola Mobility, a Google company, is building a 3D printed modular phone, and has partnered with 3D Systems for commercial fulfillment. More »
The Captured Dimensions pop-up studio was located in the Smithsonian Castle and featured approximately 80 digital cameras all connected to 3D software. More »
Microsoft expanded their support for 3D printing by launching a Windows 8 app called 3D Builder. It includes a library of objects you can edit and 3D print. More »
3D Systems (NYSE:DDD) announced the availability of the Sense 3D scanner, the first 3D scanner designed for the consumer and optimized for 3D printing. More »
With rumors circling that 3D Systems will be purchased by IBM, the stock soars. We look at why IBM might be interested in the 3D printing giant. More »
Search Results for: bre pettis
Top 3D Printing Headlines Last Week: Dinosaurs, Action Figures, Organs, Olympics
A roundup of the top news On 3D Printing brought you from July 2 to July 8.
Monday, July 2
- Video: 3D Printing for Dummies; A Very Basic Introduction
- Top 10 Countdown: Most Popular 3D Printing Stories in June 2012
Tuesday, July 3
Wednesday, July 4
Thursday, July 5
- How Leading Scientists Across Fields are Embracing 3D Printing
- Always Wanted Your Own Action Figure? 3D Print Your Face [Video]
Friday, July 6
NPR Interview: 3D Printing Without Limits, Body Parts, Sharing Culture
NPR held a special radio feature on 3D printing during their Science Friday program. Ira Flatow interviewed industry consultant Terry Wohlers, MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis, and Cornell Associate Professor Hod Lipson.
What if you needed a new toothbrush and all you had to do was hit print? What if doctors could print out transplantable organs and pastry chefs turned to a printer, not a kitchen, for their next creation? Ira Flatow and a panel of guests discuss 3D printing technology, how far it’s come and what a 3D-printed-future could look like.
Topics ranged from basic background information to detailed questions. Read the highlights below and then listen to the full radio program.
What is 3D printing? What is the MakerBot?
Terry Wohlers and Bre Pettis gave a nice overview of what 3D printing is. Here is Bre’s explanation of what the MakerBot does.
The MakerBot replicator uses one of two plastics. You can either make things in ABS plastic, which is what LEGO is made out of, or you can use PLA, which is the plastic that’s made from corn. And then you get your plastic on spools, and it kind of looks like a big spool of spaghetti.
And the spaghetti goes into the machine, and it draws a picture in plastic, and then it goes up a little bit, and layer after layer, it creates your model, and you can really create anything.
All the tools for designing things are becoming democratized. So 3D printing is getting democratized, the tools that make things are getting easier. You can use things like Tinkercad, which is free and online, and you’re off to the races and making things.
Will everyone have a 3D printer?
Comparisons were made to inkjets and microwaves. When first introduced into the market, these products were expensive and unfamiliar, but now they are common home appliances.
Even if, in the future, everyone does not have a 3D printer in the home, the experts suggested that people will have access to a 3D printer and will buy parts manufactured locally by a nearby 3D printer.
Can body parts be 3D printed?
It will happen in our lifetime. We are already 3D printing a replacement knee meniscus and have prototyped bone and organs.
Are there any limits to 3D printing?
For the first time in human history, making something complex with details that cannot be manufacturing through traditional processes is as simple as making a paperweight.
Current consumer machines are limited in size. MakerBot can print objects up to the size of a loaf of bread. But there are professional printers that can make much larger objects.
Hod Lipson’s team has a goal to print a robot, batteries included, that can walk off the printer.
The experts agreed that 3D printing will let us think about new breakthroughs in product design.
Culture of Sharing
The 3D printing community is very collaborative and are building off of each other’s successes. This allows for continuous innovation through a culture of sharing.
Via NPR.
Science museum photo by chooyutshing used under Creative Commons license.
MakerBot and 3D Systems Execs Square Off in CES Interview [Video]
In the video below, CNET’s Rafe Needleman interviews executives of two 3D printer makers and how they are charting the future of manufacturing.
Bre Pettis from MakerBot emphasizes his company’s focus on open-source innnovation. The Replicator is great for tinkerers.
Cathy Lewis from 3D Systems talks about the range of capabilities from personal 3D printing to mass production via the cloud. The Cubify allows consumers to “color in” designs provided by the 3D Systems marketplace.
Rafe Needleman approaches questions from “How do I print 5000 widgets?” to “Why wouldn’t I just buy this widget at retail?” and more.
The MakerBot Team is Democratizing Art at the Met
The MakerBot team is democratizing the art world. Using an app called Autodesk 123D Catch and the MakerBot Replicator, the team is scanning exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then 3D printing replicas. From the MakerBot blog:
June 1-2, for the first time in history, a collection of brilliant digital artists from the MakerBot Community will be graciously welcomed by the Met in New York City to study, capture, and recreate pieces from the Met’s vast collection of art and artifacts. These artists – stay tuned and we’ll tell you who! – will capture significant works into the digital domain using Autodesk’s 123D Catch, clean up and manipulate the resulting models, and then produce replicas and original pieces of art on our 3rd generation 3D printer, The Replicator.
From The Next Web:
Imagine an art class where you can see the Statue of David right in front of you. Imagine what will happen now that contemporary artists will be able to explore and hack famous works from the past. This is huge for the art community, The Met is absolutely awesome for letting this happen, and I couldn’t be more excited about this.
And in Bre Pettis’ own words:
I was an art teacher in Seattle Public Schools and with my students I could only get them to a museum once a year. Together we would get on a bus, go get a tour of a museum and go back to school.
It was great to go to a museum, but it was limited. I had a wish then that I could bring the museum into the classroom. Little did I know that 6 years later, I would be in the Metropolitan Museum of Art with some of the best artists and designers in the world scanning art and sharing it on Thingiverse for the world to download and make. We’re taking it even farther than that though. I don’t think I imagined that the work could be changed, mashed-up, hacked, and remade. It is truly a brilliant and wonderful future we live in where you can go into a museum that allows photography, take lots of pictures and then use 123D Catch to turn it into a model and share it on Thingiverse.
I’m so proud of the Met. It’s my town’s museum and it’s a brave and bold institution and it is so forward thinking that they’ve invited us in to scan, hack, and make things. When I started Thingiverse, I knew that I wanted the classic sculptures of the world to be in the universal library of things, but I imagined that someone would have to pull off the ultimate heist to make that happen. Instead of having to steal the art, the Met shares the future vision of MakerBot where the greatest artworks of the world are accessible to everyone and they’ve invited us in to make history and share the art with the world.
I’m thrilled about this, but it’s just the beginning. I hope that you will explore and capture and share the great artworks of your town. Together, we can create a great database that will inspire the next generation of artists.
Met Photo by makerbot used under Creative Commons license.
Venture Capitalists Looking Closely at 3D Printing Deals
Why are venture capitalists looking closely at 3D printing deals? This discussion highlights the interest of Brad Feld and the Foundry Group.
MakerBot is probably the most well-known venture-backed 3D printing startup, with nearly $11 million in funding and 125 employees. It also helps that MakerBot’s CEO Bre Pettis is 3D printing’s first celebrity.
One of MakerBot’s investors is Foundry Group, based in Boulder, CO. Foundry Group is investing out of two $225 million funds and has made over 70 investments. The group is composed of four managing directors with cultural leader Brad Feld.
Brad recently published a blog post about what he is obsessed with as an investor.
As the endless stream of emails, tweets, and news comes at me, I find myself going deeper on some things while trying to shed others. I’ve been noticing an increasing amount of what I consider to be noise in the system.
My best way of categorizing this is to pay attention to what I’m currently obsessed about and use that to guide my thinking and exploration. I took a break, grabbed a piece of paper, and scribbled down a list of things I was obsessed about. I didn’t think – I just wrote. Here’s the list.
- Startup communities
- Hci
- Human instrumentation
- 3d printing
- User-generated content
- Integration between things that make them better
- Total disruption of norms
Note that 3 of his 7 themes are: HCI (human computer interaction), 3D printing, and user-generated content. As the software and hardware for 3D printing becomes more accessible to the masses, these 3 ideas go hand in hand.
At Maker Faire Bay Area 2012, Brad spoke at a “Hardware Innovation Workshop” and relayed his thoughts about the Maker movement and 3D printing. As reported by VentureBeat:
“We don’t give a shit about hardware, and we don’t do hardware investments,” said Feld, whose Foundry Group has invested in several hardware companies, including MakerBot Industries, Spheero, and Fitbit. “What we love is software wrapped in plastic.”
Later, Feld moderated his statement, acknowledging that he does care about hardware. But what matters to Foundry, in this case, is whether the company fits into one of its major themes: In this case, human-computer interaction, or the ways in which humans feed data to machines. For that to work, hardware depends on software to help it interface with its human users.
“The maker movement … has really shifted this dynamic,” Feld said. “Users can create stuff that they care about.”
We look forward to seeing more startups focused on HCI, user-generated content and 3D printing – more “software wrapped in plastic” - getting support from renowned investors like Foundry Group.
Brad Feld photo by Rocky Mountain Joe used under Creative Commons license.
