Tag Archives: Cube

With Sites Set on LEGO, 3D Systems Cubify Launches Robot Toy Line

3D Systems Cubify Toy Robots

3D Systems’ consumer brand Cubify has announced a new toy line called Cubify robots. This move follows the acquisition of My Robot Nation and launch of the Cube consumer 3D printer.

We have published several features about the toy industry and how 3D printing will disrupt it, including the father who printed the Rosetta stone for toys.

Now 3D Systems is taking a page from LEGO and other popular toy manufacturers by making collectable toy robots whose parts are interchangeable.

From the 3D Systems press release:

3D Systems Corporation announced today the immediate availability of its new Cubify® toy robots designed specifically for printing on Cube®, the world’s first home 3D printer. The entire collection can be downloaded and printed at home on your Cube 3D printer.

Starting at just $4.99, Cube printed robots are also available for home delivery through Cubify and come individually packaged or in sets of three with exciting options to choose from like ray-guns and rocket-packs.

Cubify® robots are moveable, poseable and printable in colorful, lego-like plastic. Printed parts can be snapped together, swapped and colors mixed to create an amazing new robot, or an entire crew.  With thousands of possible combinations, Cubify robots provide hours of educational and creative fun for kids and adults alike.

“We are thrilled with these cute, playful new Cubify robots. Kids of all ages can collect the entire series as they create unique configurations to amaze their friends,” said Cathy Lewis, Vice President of Global Marketing for 3D Systems.   “Our excitement continues to build with each new toy and app we make available to our growing Cubify community.”

 

Top 3D Printing Headlines Last Week: Apple, Google, Joe Biden, $300 Printer

Apple 3D Printing

A roundup of the top news On 3D Printing brought you from June 25 to July 1.

Monday, June 25

Tuesday, June 26

Wednesday, June 27

Thursday, June 28

Friday, June 29

Exclusive: Cubify by 3D Systems Prints at Google I/O and Launches API

Cubify by 3D Systems at Google I/O

Cubify by 3D systems hosted a 3D printing station at Google I/O in San Francisco this week. At this station, the 6,000+ Google I/O attendees could design their own custom 3D printed Nexus phone stand and print it off at the show.

Not only was the Cubify team educating people about 3D Printing, but also were announcing their public API to thousands of Android developers who might want to build a 3D printing app.

We took some photos of the team showing off some 3D printed goods, such as a belt, glove and tie.

Cubify 3D Printed Goods at Google IO

The Cube printers were on display in various colors, each working to print a custom Nexus phone stand for a lucky attendee.

Cube 3D Printer at Google IO

They also had some goods that were created on other 3D printers by 3D Systems, such as the guitar in this photo.

3D Printed Guitar by 3D Systems

 

Read more about 3D Systems and Cubify in our previous posts.

Photos by on3dprinting.com.

UP! 3D Printer from China: Viable Competitor to US 3D Printer Makers

UP! 3D Printer from China

Forest Higgs, a self-proclaimed “technocratic anarchist”, has written a detailed review of the UP! 3D printer, a compact desktop 3D printer from China.

Forest explains how he first was introduced to the UP! 3D printer.

Some months ago, a long term technology friend of mine acquired an UP!  While Peggy has been a inspired developer of educational technology for years, she did not, to the best of my knowledge, have any prior knowledge of the ins and outs of 3D printing on personal printers.  In spite of that, Peggy whipped her UP! printer out of the box and did a brilliant print first time out. That really caught my attention.  I’d been working on the Reprap project for years and still, when I bought a Rapman, a greatly enhanced Darwin-derivative, several years ago it had taken me the better part of a month to get used to the quirks of printing on it to the point that I could get reliably good prints.

Later he walks through specific features and functionality, with detailed photos and comparisons to other printers in the market.

Out of the box, one thing that immediately struck me was the tiny size of the UP! The 140x140x135mm print volume reminded me a lot of the old Makerbot Cupcake.  It took me about half an hour to get out of the box and set up, ready for operation.  While the manuals indicated that I might have to level the print surface, this was not necessary.  Calibrating the printhead height took about ten minutes.  When I ordered the UP, I was very worried about print adhesion to the print surface.  Delta Micro offered three solutions; perforated printed circuit board, painted glass and Kaplon tape covered glass.  I had had so much drama with prints peeling off of the print table with the Rapman over the years that I ordered all three options.

Forest concludes: the UP! is a meaningful competitor from China.

Finally, it appears that Delta Micro is going for the throat of the manufacturers of Repraps in the US and elsewhere.  They are now offering a slightly smaller printer, the UP! Mini! with a 120x120x120 enclosed print volume which uses standard 1.75 mm filament for less than $1,000.  The UP! Mini appears to be a serious challenge to both the Reprap variations and to the 3D Systems Cube system.  It strikes me that unless the quality and ease of use of UP! competitors makes a rather quick quantum leap they could easily find themselves to be a historical footnote in the history of 3D printing rather than a new paradigm of virally diffused technology.

Read the full review by Forest Higgs, who says on his blog, “If I wasn’t supposed to take it apart, it wouldn’t have screws in it.”

 

UP! 3D printer photo by donjd2 used under Creative Commons license.

3D Printing Inventor Chuck Hall Gets His Cube from 3D Systems

Chuck Hull Receives Cube

Chuck Hull is known as the inventor of 3D printing. 30 years ago, Hull was working in Southern California at a mid-size manufacturer called Ultra Violet Products. Hull helped develop the company’s ultraviolet-light curable resins, which were used to add protective coatings to furniture and other surfaces. Hull began experimenting after hours with laying down numerous coats of the resin to make plastic models and thus 3D printing was born.

In 1983, Hull formalized this technology, called stereolithography, and later founded 3D Systems in 1986.

In the photo above, Chuck Hull is showing off his own Cube, the latest consumer 3D printer from 3D Systems. Cubify’s blog commented on this event:

None of us would be doing what we do today at Cubify without Chuck and we’re so happy he continues to bring us newer, better, and sometimes unimaginably small printers like the Cube. Naturally, Chuck had to be the first to officially receive a Cube!