We are planning on moving Thingiverse to a newer, faster server starting at 10AM Eastern time on Monday, Feb 8th. The transition should be painless, but it will probably take an hour or so for us to move everything over. Please bear with us while we do this upgrade. Once everything is done, the site should run much faster.

Wow! It’s been way too long since I had a chance to do a Thingiverse Thursday. This one isn’t super impressive, but I got some things in that I’ve had on my list for a while:

* Thingiverse login / comment integration. We upgraded to JS-Kit Pro which means we can take advantage of their custom site login integration. That means that if you’re logged into thingiverse, then any comments show up as being from you. Awesome! Of course if you’re not logged in, you can post anonymously or use openid.

* New login screen. A while back, I saw this cool login idea called Chroma Hash. The idea is to give you visual feedback on your password as you type so you can make sure you entered it correctly. It hashes your password into three colored bars based on the text. No more wondering if you typed your password in correctly or not!

* Parts system update. Added a couple fields to the inventory system to let you keep track of the cost and the value of your stuff in inventory. Eventually you’ll be able to get a report of how much its worth and stuff. This is a feature for MakerBot so we can keep track of how much crap we have. Yay!

The advent of mobile computing has brought us many things: the sum of human knowledge at your fingertips wherever you are, instant map capabilities, and the ability to wax poetic on the go 140 characters at a time. Well, now you can carry a universe of things in your pocket. Provided your pocket has an iPhone, of course.

The iPhone site is the product of about 4 days of feverish hacking and refactoring of the existing Thingiverse code. It’s pretty much read only, but if you need to do any heavy lifting you can easily switch back to the standard HTML view. The idea is to create a site that is interesting and helpful if you want to kill some time and see whats going on in the ‘verse.

Of course, there is an ulterior motive: I wanted to be able to access the inventory system on my iphone. I’ll admit that I’m a selfish bastard, but also a thorough one. When I launched the parts and inventory systems I was really happy. Especially when I realized that I could skip the whole barcode reader step and just put QR codes with the part url on all of our parts. (Notice we auto-generate QR codes for all parts and things on thingiverse…)

Well, unfortunately I soon realized that the computer-monitor optimized Thingiverse did not make managing the inventory via iPhone very easy. So, instead of simply converting that single page into one that works well with the iPhone, I converted the whole site! Now that its done… its really awesome! All of our boxes at MakerBot are covered in QR code stickers. I just scan one of those stickers with QuickMark and it takes me to the Thingiverse page for that part. From there I can add or subtract from our inventory nice and easy. No more lugging a heavy box to the barcode scanner station just so I can add or subtract one bolt. I can just grab a bolt, scan the code and go!

Ah the joy of 4 days work to save 5 minutes work.

Now that the parts nebula has been launched, I’ve been able to get some feedback and implement some features I’ve been wanting. We are using this system as a backend for MakerBot inventory, don’t be surprised if its geared a bit towards running a large scale open source hardware company.

Anyway, the first feature is one that we will all appreciate here at the warehouse: part locations. If you add parts to your inventory, you can also specify the location of those parts. I also tweaked the UI a bit and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Its a bit tidier, a bit tighter, and hopefully easier to use.

Our current setup is simple. We have about 10 racks of shelves, and each rack has about 10 shelves on it. Each shelf can fix exactly 4 boxes, and each box holds only one item. Some items are stored in more than one box, but they are all clustered together. We have labeled the racks #1-#10 and each shelf is labeled A-J. Each shelf has a unique location, such as RACK 5 / SHELF F. If you wanted to get tricky, you could do RACK 5 / SHELF F / BOX 2. Since there are only 4 boxes max per shelf, we are going to stick to the shelf level. Aside from the work of printing and labeling 400 boxes, it should be pretty simple to add the location for all the parts to Thingiverse. Then the magic begins.

You see, the parts in your inventory are linked with the parts that you can add to a thing. This means that when you generate a part list for a thing, the system can automatically look up the parts in your inventory and add the location of the things for you! No more wandering the shelves like a ghost looking for that one box. Instead you can simply look over the parts list printout and know exactly where the parts are. Not only that, but if you are looking for a certain part, you can simply look it up in your inventory and will tell you exactly where it is.

Last but not least, I added the location field to the CSV export so you have that critical data wherever you want it. I also added the ability to sort by name, quantity, and location. Those should all be helpful when determining what you’re low on, what you have a bunch of, as well as getting a list of what places hold what parts.

Up next: grouped part lists with subassemblies. Should be exciting.

At the early hour of 9:30AM, I was awoken by a call from from my friend at NASA. Apparently, in a nondescript patch of what was once thought to be emptiness, new features of the Thingiverse have been discovered! New information is still pouring in about the exact nature of the discovery, but apparently it has to deal with the building blocks of Things themselves. They have discovered a completely new Parts nebula that is literally swarming with parts and suppliers.

You see, the Things we deal with are typically made up of many individual Parts. For example, even a simple hairpin needs 3 parts: 2 printed ones, and a spring. As you create more and more complicated Things, the number of parts goes up dramatically. Something relatively simple like a PCB holder vise has numerous parts that must be printed or purchased in order to build it. On the extreme end of things, a complicated machine like the CupCake CNC has hundreds of parts which are all critical to its operation. The issue of how to properly catalog and specify these parts has caused engineers and hobbyists alike much frustration.

Now, with the discovery of the Parts Nebula, those days may soon be behind us. With this new data, Thingiverse citizens may now create structured part lists that can be shared and even embedded in their own websites. These part lists are designed to be as helpful as possible. They print out very easily for a trip to the hardware store. For those who prefer to shop online, suppliers can be added to parts to streamline the online part hunt. Parts themselves can be reused between Things, which saves time and effort. Last, but not least, there is an inventory system which allows you to keep track of what parts you have.

So, lets explore the new findings a bit deeper. Luckily the new ’screenshot’ system that was installed in the Hubble has resulted in wonderfully crisp images of the new features.

Here we see a completed part list on an Opto Endstop, an electronic component used in MakerBots and RepRap machines:

Here, we see the exact same part list, but embedded in the MakerBot wiki:

The embed is a very useful thing. It contains Part IDs, names, and quantities, and many useful links. We’ve embedded it into this blog post for you to play with:

Let’s take some time to explore a few of those links. Each part name links back to its own individual page where you can find information on the part such as your inventory, suppliers, photos, and even other things that use that part:

The embed itself contains the code needed to embed it on a different site, so maybe the partlist you design will become viral and spread its wings across the net.

The nice thing about the embed being an iframe, is that only the iframe will be printed when you click the print button. Put the part list in your pocket and head to your hardware store / hackermart and pick up those last few parts for your Robotron.

Last, but not least there is the shopping cart feature. This is a nifty little bit of software we’ve been that allows you to locate suppliers where you can purchase the parts you need. Notice in the screenshot that it integrates with the inventory system:

Oh, did I mention the inventory system? Yeah… you can add any of the parts on Thingiverse to your own personal inventory system. Complete with inventory export, logging of inventory transactions and barcode scanning support. We built it because we needed it, and we’re sharing it because we love you.

Of course, you’ll actually have to use this system at some point in time, so here’s a look at the interface for adding parts to your thing:

It’s been way too long, but I finally got a free day to sit down and hack on the ‘verse. Here’s what I did today:

* small tweaks/improvements to the publish system.
* fixed a bug where you could see unpublished content (oops!)
* new derivatives now default to original license (thanks TMR)
* when you publish your thing, it gets bumped to the top of the newest things. (thanks TMR)
* some tweaks to the rendering system which may or may not make it better.
* cleaned up ‘made things’ / ‘instances’ page and added comments
* new email notification when people comment on the object you’ve made
* new email notification when people have made one of your objects.

Lots of little tweaks this week. Hopefully next week I’ll have a chance to work on some fun features I’ve been wanting for a long time.

This is seriously my favorite day of the week lately. I sit down, hack on my favorite website and make it do new and cool things. Here’s what I did today:

* Fixed a bug that showed the delete icon on derivatives that aren’t yours. (thanks syvwlch)
* Added ‘Publish’ functionality so your blank thing doesnt get shown to the world until you’re ready
* Added a Derivatives listing and an Instances listing which show you the things other people have made

New Feature: Publish Thing

I’ve noticed that it generally takes 5-10 minutes from uploading your file to finishing the description and metadata so that it is a fully filled out thing. Well, now I’ve added a feature so that your thing does not show up publicly until you actually click Publish. It should be pretty in-your-face about it, so don’t forget to publish your things.

New Feature: Derivatives and Instances

Since I fixed the derivatives system last week, there have been a good number of derivative things, and people have been hitting the ‘i made one’ link pretty hard. This is awesome, but we haven’t really had a good way to see what things people are making. Well, now we do. I’ve added a list of derivatives and a list of things people have made to the homepage, as well as created listing pages so you can look over all the previous ones as well.

Oh, and you can get rss feeds of derivatives and things people have made as well.

So I was printing some tweezers I downloaded the other day, and they turned out really nicely because it was basically one big outline with very few starts/stops of the extruder. Playing with them, seeing how strong they were, and also looking at the cool profile they made got me thinking: Wow, this sort of looks like the profile of a wing! That idea got into my head, and I decided that I absolutely needed to try and 3D print wings of some sort.

Unfortunately I’m barely a n00b at 3D modeling, and I don’t know the first thing about wing design, so I hit up the Thingiverse Community to see if anyone had any models or experience. It turns out that a few of our members are avid RC plane hobbyists and were quick to post a few wing designs here and here. Their passion about this technology was really refreshing, and it was cool to collaborate digitally on a physical object.

The wings themselves turned out really nice. The grains are all in the direction of flow, and they are really smooth. If they don’t outright work, it would be a very simple 5 minute sanding job to get them absolutely perfect. I havent weighted them, but they are strong and light-weight. They are 70mm long, but I’m going to try and print ones that are 120-130mm next (current max build height) The only problem I have is that I don’t have access to any sort of wind-tunnel or RC plane to test them on. Does anyone want samples to play with?

(reposted from the MakerBot Blog)

After missing the past 2 weeks, I finally managed to revive Thingiverse Thursdays, my weekly spend-an-entire-day working on Thingiverse and trying to make it better. Its easy to get caught up in all the various projects I’ve gotten involved in *cough* MakerBot *cough*, and I really love the site that Thingiverse is growing to be (and already is)

Anyway, here’s a short list of things I fixed:

* general look/feel improvements (edit page tab colors, logout link, download button, etc.)
* fixed the derivative system / i made something system so it now works properly!
* worked on Aviary API integration (coming soon!)
* built and released a new Notifications system. right now, you can get notifications when: someone comments on your thing, someone makes a derivative of your thing, and when the mods feature your thing.

i’m pretty psyched about notifications. we use js-kit, which is awesome. they just don’t offer any sort of ability to specify who should get comment notifications and it sucks. their APIs suck, so i wrote a script that scrapes the rss feed of all comments on thingiverse. once i had that, then i could do all sorts of fun stuff with the comment data. now you’ll be able to know when people comment on your things! you can set this all up in your user profile.

next up: add ‘publish’ functionality to your thing so that it doesnt go live right away, and i’d like to start work on a parts lister ala parts.reprap.org

Greetings denizens of the Thingiverse. Scientists from the Automated Tools Nebula are reporting the sighting of a new and interesting craft dubbed the CupCake CNC. Early reports indicate that it is a cubic shaped machine capable of producing small objects in an automated fashion from a variety of materials including both plastic and frosting. Evidently the creators of the craft are a species that call themselves MakerBot Industries and claim to be the creators of the Thingiverse itself!

This preposterous claim may seem unsubstantiated at first, but as scientists we must give it a fair examination. As the Thingiverse has no known origin, we must rely on the knowledge gained from critical evaluation of the Thingiverse ‘Footer’. It seems that it has changed to now read MakerBot Industries which does imply that the two are related. Obviously more research is needed to determine the true nature and relationship between the two.

The leaders of the mysterious MakerBot Industries have asked that we play the following message to all the leaders of the various Galaxies in the Thingiverse.