Tag Archives: Canada
The 3D Printer is Now Affordable – $100 Peachy 3D Printer on Kickstarter
$100 3D Printer Closing in on $500,000 on Kickstarter
How much does a desktop 3D printer cost? If you asked that question a year ago, the answer would be influenced by the price of a MakerBot Replicator, the leading home 3D printer that sells for $2,199.
Well, now the answer is $100, thanks to a Canadian entrepreneur named Rylan Grayston.
Mr. Grayston has literally reinvented the 3D printer and has launched a Kickstarter campaign for his product he calls “Peachy”, a $100 3D printer. With 23 days left in his campaign, he has raised nearly $500,000 CAD to fund the final development and distribution of his device.
It’s affordable, small, lightweight, and unique. It’s a 3D printer in a class all its own.
The promise of the Peachy is simple yet bold, “We want to lower the cost and difficulty of 3D Printing to a point where it’s accessible to the masses. We want the 3D Printer to become a household item. We want 3D printing to become a common part of life. We want you to have the choice: Should I buy it or should I make it?”
Reinventing the 3D Printer
While there are many low-cost desktop 3D printer alternatives, the cheapest available option to date has been priced at $500, such as the Robo 3D. The reason is that 3D printers have many mechanical components — galvanometers, shafts, motors, gears, microcontrollers, and so on — that create a cost floor.
Peachy’s design is different. It uses salt water to rise the resin. It connects to your laptop to harness the power of the sound card as a replacement for a traditional microcontroller. The smarts of the device are in software instead of hardware.
Mr. Grayston explained in his Kickstarter video that he replaced traditional expensive 3D printer parts with stuff lying around the house. “Literally the first version of the Peachy printer was created using household items,” said Grayston.
Kickstarter Campaign
Below is the video Rylan Grayston published on Kickstarter to promote his Peachy 3D printer.
Fab Lab of the Week: Maker Kids Lab in Toronto
This week’s featured Fab Lab is Maker Kids Lab in Toronto. Maker Kids is a non-profit center that gives kids the space and tools to design and build their own creative projects. From 3D printing to robots, the lab has everything you would expect from a makerspace, just with smaller chairs.
In recent years, the Maker movement has grown exponentially through print publications, web sites, events and community spaces. Collective community workshops known as Hackerspaces or Makerspaces have grown worldwide from 124 in 2009 to over 500 in 2011. We are at the leading edge, providing one of the first kids’ Makerspaces, empowering all kids to be Makers.
We started in 2010 with a summer program and school events. In 2011 we obtained a permanent space and renovated it extensively. Our Makerspace has areas and tools for woodworking, electronics, mechanical creations, 3D printing, programming, art, sewing, and all kinds of other crafting and making. It is a centre for ideas, inspiration and implementation – a resource centre for our community.
Our program relies on a strong volunteer base and mentorship by kids themselves. Our adult collaborators are facilitators for the kids, and also encourage them to seek out resources to learn on their own, and to teach each other. Teenage collaborators help the younger kids as a part of their high school volunteer hours, as well as work on their own projects.
Interwoven with everything we do is our philosophy to honour kids’ own creativity and trust their abilities. Kids who are confident in their own abilities are capable of learning and doing anything!
Photo credit to Ponoko, who visited Maker Kids this past week and posted some photos from their trip.
