I’m super excited to have just pre-ordered a Thing-o-Matic from MakerBot Industries. It’s a fully automatic 3D printer (aka CNC rapid prototyper) that can also be outfitted with different material nosels (aka extruders) to draw in 2D, print designs for circuit board, and even dispense frosting and peanut butter. (Not joking.) Here’s a great example of what you can do with it. (Skip to 3:00 for the cool stuff.)
Here’s another video of the machine printing parts for copies of RepRap Mendel, another F/OSS CNC RP machine design:
This is a new model that won’t ship won’t ship until November 2010, unfortunately, but I’m sure it’ll take a while to get some cool designs done, anyway. The idea here is that if anyone else would like their own desktop 3D printer (RepRap, CupCake, Thing-o-Matic or other F/OSS design), you’ll be able to print about 50% of the parts for it on this original “parent” machine and order your own electronics and other assembly hardware online. 🙂
*Giddy with excitement.*
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