The last MakerBot I built was #33, although given that some of its parts originated from the prototyping process, and given that I scrounged many of the parts (including some borrowed minutes on Revar’s roommate’s laser cutter for the XY carriage), and given that, at the time, I was using slightly nonstandard circuit boards and had to rewrite the firmware to fit, then the software to comply with my new firmware, it might not quite be fair to call it even a first-batch MakerBot.

The change between the two is quite dramatic, and while I’ll try not to deluge you all with too much MakerBot-specific news (Thingiverse is about Things), it’s worth noting just how much easier 3D printer construction (and operation) is becoming.  I’ve documented the build of #3344 on Flickr, and I’ll be occasionally posting with updates on the tuning process.

Also, now that I’ve got a better-working machine, maybe I can print and show off some of the amazing things I see show up that haven’t been printed yet!

George Hart’s 3D Printing Page acquired this beauty a little while ago which, as per an earlier agreement between us, I only too happily uploaded to Thingiverse the minute I spotted it.  Because look at that.  It’s Epic.

But as beautiful as it is, I’m much more excited by his unbelievably thorough documentation of the shape, how it was created, and how the underlying mathematics of this structure come into play.  On the shape’s web page, George Hart has posted an honest to goodness academic-grade paper describing the general method for making shapes like this one, along with his Mathmatica source code.

This is a beautiful object by itself, but by generalizing it and publishing, George Hart has made a massive asymmetric gift to everyone.  Bravo.

This Tux penguin by Gerrit Coetzee is pretty attractive, and although I predict a little bit of bot-tilting in its future, I think it’ll print out just fine.  (Did I mention I love all the rendered GCode preview images that keep showing up lately?)

Printable Linux Penguins seem like a pretty natural development given how Open Source Hardware has pretty much claimed nearly the whole lower end of the 3D printing price range…

If you’ve worked with professional 3D printers with support material, you may be familiar with the Base Bath.  The Base Bath is a solution of sodium hydroxide (read, very strong base) which dissolves away the support material in a process that produces a not-quite-unpleasant aroma of something vaguely like cough syrup.  Yikes.

The new material in town is water soluble though, so in terms of actively caustic situations it’s way down there.  At 32$ a pound it’s a fair bit pricier than the plastic you’ll be supporting with it, but as with the plastic itself, the cost per cubic inch ends up being pretty dang inexpensive.  Thanks to the amazing Christopher Jansen, the problem of instructing SkeinForge how to use it is already basically solved (see his beautiful documentation of the remaining issues here), so the Mendels and Makerbots of the world may now begin salivating at the prospect of floating materials, print-in-place clockwork, and so on.

This isn’t necessarily the end of no-support 3D printing techniques though.  It’s still cheaper to do without, both from an initial investment standpoint (have to have TWO extruder modules) and a per-print standpoint (can quadruple the cost of a build, which in large batches starts to add up).  It’s also faster to do without.  So for those reasons I think the no-support techniques and tricks front will be with us for a while.  But I for one am already scheming about the awesome things I could build if I had a second print head pushing soluble plastic.

This is gonna be good.

Just for the record, anything involving a gear train with a worm drive in it is going to make me absolutely gaga because I adore worm drives.  But it’s been rumored that I may not be perfectly stable.  Depends on weather.  And rubber chickens.

But seriously, this design is exquisite.  Attention to detail, source files on the Thing post, looks sturdy and is demonstrated printable.  The “vitamins” list for a fully operating tankbot is now: motors, as-few-as-one IC, battery pack, smartphone to control.  I say smartphone because they’re heading towards ubiquity, and happily the main OS platform is open.  Also, no need to scrounge for sensors.  They’re in the phone.

Another “Woa” moment from the amazing inventors on Thingiverse.

Thingiverse creators are really kicking it up a notch lately in terms of tool development– there’s projects in Processing, mashups and increasingly complex models in OpenSCAD, and even doing freaky-impressive mechanical designs in Blender, not a program known for being the be-all end-all mechanical CAD tool.

Back in the early days of Thingiverse, there weren’t many tools out there, a lot of them were missing key features, and none of the open source tools were capable of really advanced solid constructive geometry of the sort OpenSCAD can accomplish.

Now, with more users, we’re starting to see a real Cambrian Explosion of tools– with not one but many Processing apps that generate STL or GCode files, alternative slicer projects, and dozens of tools and widgets that live in software, but serve the needs of physical makers.  As the infrastructure for CNC fabrication has fallen in price and landed in the hands of tinkerers around the globe, it has truly begun to create a world where thinking of something is not some tiny fraction but most of the way to seeing it instantiated in the real world.

And as the tools we’re now inventing proliferate and intertwine, they are creating a whole new layer of ubiquitous intellectual machinery, available to anyone, designed to make invention simpler and design faster.  What’s exciting about all this is how this dazzling new field is starting out open, with tools that are free, models where alterations and remixes are welcomed, and where the basic infrastructure is designed with openness in mind.

CNC Fabrication, as I’ve said, is the thin end of the wedge that leads (ultimately) to ubiquitous micro- and nano-fabrication.  And with the precision levels increasing, with new materials becoming available all the time, and with a consistently open framework… wonderful things are ahead.

If you’ve been following this blog, or have kept an eye on the DIY 3D printing world, you’ll remember the DMCA drama from last week. I’m happy to say that there is a new and interesting development: Ulrich Schwanitz has decided to drop his DMCA claims and place his design in the public domain! I am not privvy to the reasoning behind it, but perhaps he was inspired by the thousands of other open designs here on Thingiverse?

I would like to publicly re-iterate my words of encouragement to Dr. Schwanitz to post his designs to Thingiverse. I’d like to show him what an awesome community we are, and that making money is still possible while giving away your design. So if you see a thing or two by him, please be nice!

We have re-enabled both of the designs in question, so feel free to print them to your hearts desire. With this recent development, the whole “Copyright Challenge of a 3D Printable Model” chapter of 3D printing comes to a close. As my mother used to say: All’s well that ends well.

I think a DMCA takedown does underscore something we’ve already known– open source licenses are important.  The law is backwards looking, and it will not soon adjust to the reality of a place where people create freely and instantiate their creations and derive between each other’s artwork, especially where copyright law is dictated by the needs of legacy institutions.  As such, it will be fundamentally challenging to keep Thingiverse free while still adhering to the law.

But obviously, this is what we want to do.

The best tool for that is Creative Commons and GPL licenses.  By providing an easy framework for users to make their designs shareable, Thingiverse gives you the tools to actively proclaim that you are NOT making a closed design.

There are going to be problems:

One: There will be more DMCA notices in the future and Thingiverse is bound legally to respond to them.

Two: Some people will submit false DMCA notices.  This is going to be a legitimate problem, and will need to be dealt with in the long run with thoughtful policy.

Three: “well poisoning”.  This is probably worse than the first, because it potentially chills the entire sharing infrastructure.  How does a DMCA claim impact the tree of derivative objects?  What about a legitimate one?  My first impulse is to say “separate work, separate DMCA, and probably fair use anyway,” but there are going to be “tree attacks” on all derivatives of something, and that creates a strong disincentive to proper documentation of sources, even legitimate ones, which is bad news for everyone.

How do we respond?  By doing what we’ve been doing, only fully aware that there are bumps and legal challenges ahead.  By documenting our creations and keeping them in the Creative Commons or the GPL, we can create a solid framework of obvious, documented designs, allowing an attack on a derivative to be defended against with a long line of prior art.

Keep posting great things, and don’t sweat it when one gets taken down.  We’re creators with a deep passion for making things. There’s plenty more where that came from.

This.

This is a beautiful mathematical sculpture which accepts magnets via a press-fit so that you can build BIG sculptures with many duplicates of the original object.  An elegant, modular shape you could snap together into big sheets or bricks of curvy beauty.

Author also links a good source of cheap magnets.

For better or worse, we’ve hit a milestone in the history of digital fabrication. We’ve just received our first DMCA takedown notice for a copyrighted object. Due to the DMCA we are required to respond to takedown notices in a timely manner or risk losing protection under the “Safe Harbor” provision. Since we’d like to continue to be a place where people can openly share their designs with the world, we have complied.

If you are unfamiliar with the DMCA and/or the Safe Harbor provision, there is an excellent FAQ at Chilling Effects. In this day and age, knowing is half the battle.

As a result of this, we’ve also had to learn more about the DMCA. To this end, we’ve updated our legal page with a new DMCA specific policy. Thanks to our friends at Etsy, we were able to quickly add the appropriate language to that document. Please take a read and feel free to give us your feedback and opinions in the comments.

In the interest of openness, you can also read the email that prompted our new policy below the fold. You may have noticed that this design has been getting a lot of attention on Boingboing and imaterialize.

» Continue reading “Copyright Policy”