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 SingularityU user on Thingiverse has uploaded the 1000th thing to Thingiverse! It’s a spool holder!

Thingiverse started when Zach and I were at NYCResistor and we really needed a place to upload our designs. At the time we had just come up with this idea called “Saturday Spaz” and the goal was to choose something and see if you can make it in one hour on a Saturday. After an hour of infrastructure setup, we knew we were on to something.

Now after we hit this 1000th thing milestone, Thingiverse has come a long way. The tool nebula and the parts nebula have been discovered and put into use and we regularly see folks using Thingiverse as a way to discover wonderful things in the universe!

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:

I’ve been going on and on about digital fabrication for quite a while now while my own MakerBot sat unfinished at the corner of my desk.  But now it’s working.  Thanks in no small part to my friend and CNC Guru who not only got my XY stage parts cut for me, but who visited today and yesterday to help me get my firmware woes taken care of.  As it happens I really could not have asked for a better teacher; Revar knows his stuff.

We wrote a processing script that sends gcodes to my RepRap Gen2 electronics, (I’ll post it when I’ve got a nicer interface) got it running, debugged a few remaining mechanical issues (including a few boneheaded moves on my part in the Plastruder MK3) and got our first raft late last night.  Due to a gcode malfunction (firmware misinterpreted a “get slightly hotter” code as “turn off the heat” which caused the print to fail after the raft AND strip the filament) we didn’t get the first printed object (see above) until this morning after we’d both got some food and sleep.

I’m stepping back for a bit to ponder the possibilities now that I actually can do a lot of the things I’ve been talking about, and then, well, I think I’m going to make some cool things.

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.

(Junk drawer by gesteves)

Thingiverse has been doing an increasingly brisk job of accumulating models lately, and some of it is really wild stuff.  There’s sanity-defying mathematically contorted teapots, a 3D scanner turntable, and an eerie computer-evolved walker, all here in the thingiverse.

But what really excites me is the bundle of everyday things.

Lately things like stylus replacements for the Nintendo DS, project cases, flashlights (just add ninevolt, switch, resistors and LEDs), and trolley tokens are showing up.  The basket of Everyday Goods a Makerbot can make at more or less negligible cost is growing.  How long will it be before there’s more than $750 worth of stuff here?

If you count multiples, we’re already there, really.  It’d take 375 Nintendo DS styluses, or 100 or so project cases or gear boxes.  The breakeven sales numbers for a hobby shop owning one of these have to be getting pretty low by now…

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.

As of this writing, there are four free, motile robots (and two robot arms) on Thingiverse, free to download and fabricate, all based on simple, standard technology.  Anyone can download the plans, and with access to either a 3D printer or a laser cutter, build them pretty cheaply.

At the moment, this is something of a curiosity for hobbyists.  Those of us who “know a place that’s got a machine” can get these designs made, but for most people, right now, the cost of any one of these designs is actually higher than a kit, since it would either take time (tracking down a trophy shop that will let them use the laser, for example) or money (it’s the first print on the MakerBot that’s expensive– they get a lot cheaper after that!) to get started.

But digital fabrication is spreading, and fast.  I wasn’t following the development, but I kind of doubt Bre’s statement that “your local trophy shop might have a laser cutter” would have been true even a few years ago.  With open source 3D printers beginning to mature, the hobby shops where one might buy robot kits may increasingly have a 3D printer behind the counter running at prices below fifteen dollars a pound.  (That would be about a 200% markup, incidentally, giving our hobby shop a healthy profit margin without models being anything like prohibitively expensive.)  Even a development as modest as this would mean that 3D printed robots would be cheap, plentiful, and with some friendly competition between robot creators, well-designed.

The additional components will get cheaper, too.  Many robot kits rely on gearmotors or servos for actuation.  These standardized, bundled packages include motors, tiny gears, and in the case of servos, electric control systems to maintain position.  The advantages of this pre-packaged solution are great: the tiny, precision gears provide excellent drive characteristics and exhibit only tiny amounts of “backlash,” and because they have such a broad set of uses, the market supports enough competition to keep the price fairly low.

(As I’ve said before, the primary arena where personal fabrication will defeat factory fabrication is the “long tail” of demand, where very few people need a specific item.)

However, the tradeoff that a 3D printer can bring to the gearbox arena is: low cost and high customization, in exchange for bulkier, heavier, more backlash-prone gears.  As improving technology puts the squeeze on these disadvantages, and as greater availability of 3D printing pushes the cost even lower, I think we’ll see creative commons gearboxes come into the hobby market in a very big way.

The cost break of a 3D printed gearbox is already pretty close to becoming fact.  A gearmotor kit from Tamiya generally costs about $10.  An equivalent 3D printed gearmotor might be put together for as little as $2, given that basic electric motors are so cheap.  Building this into a printable robot would create a very inexpensive machine indeed.  Using off-the-shelf electronics, I compute that a simple printed robot could cost as little as $10, at which point a hobbyist who might have built a single robot from a kit or custom-designed and built one might just download and digitally fabricate a dozen or more for comparable cost and have a robot swarm.  Many of the robotics experiments we see universities performing lately are with swarm robots.  3D printing just might let hobbyists start to do the same thing.

And that would be a very big robot party indeed.

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