3D Printing Coming Home

This one is for all those awesome miniature Wing Commander model makers and 3D artists out there. Hot off the floor of CES this week is the MakerBot Replicator 3D. It's an amazing 3D printer capable of turning your personal 3D models into real life plastic designs. This version supports two simultaneous colors and/or types of material stock. A $2000 price tag is a bit steep, but it's not unreasonable for such a fancy futuristic device. I'd love to see what Wingnuts could do with it!

The MakerBot Replicator™ is the ultimate personal 3D printer, with MakerBot Dualstrusion™ (2-color printing) and a bigger printing footprint, giving you the superpower to print things BIG! Assembled in Brooklyn by skilled technicians, the MakerBot Replicator™ is ready within minutes to start printing right out of the box. At $1749 for a single extruder and $1999 for a dual extruder, The MakerBot Replicator™ is an affordable, open source 3D printer that is compact enough to sit on your desktop.

With a build envelope that's roughly the size of a loaf of bread, The MakerBot Replicator™ gives you the power to go big. Make an entire chess set with the press of a button. Friends, classmates, co-workers, and family will see the things you make and say "Wow!"

The MakerBot Replicator™ creates anything you can imagine with the new MakerBot Stepstruder™ MK8, the extruder is the part of the machine that turns raw feedstock, like ABS (what Lego® is made of) or PLA (a biodegradable material made from corn), into the objects you desire. You can order your MakerBot Replicator™ with single or dual MakerBot Stepstruders on it. By choosing the dual extrusion option, you'll print with two different colors at the same time. MakerBot Dualstrusion™ unlocks the ability to make beautiful combinations of colors and opens the door to experimenting with multi-material objects.

Today, MakerBot Industries re-launches Thingiverse.com, the website that allows you to share your designs and download files for thousands of models turning your ideas into real, physical objects. It's now easier than ever to share your digital designs! Thingiverse users will notice a new look and better organization for Thing pages and User profiles, as well as improved search and navigation making it easier to find what you're looking for. The updated Thing sharing process allows you to share designs faster with the "I Made One" button and use the new "I Made a Derivative" button to show off your mashups!

The MakerBot Replicator™ is ideal for personalized manufacturing, providing a new way to make the things you want and need. It is also an essential tool for children and students; parents and educators with a MakerBot Replicator™ offer the next generation an opportunity to learn the digital designing skills required to solve the problems of the future. Students with access to a MakerBot have an edge in the future job market. Just like the youth of the 1980's, who had access to computers, children with access to a MakerBot Replicator™ will become the leaders who make a better tomorrow.

The MakerBot Replicator™ is the tool from tomorrow, today. In the two years since the company was founded, the capabilities of a MakerBot have grown from printing cupcake-sized objects in 2009 to printing things as large as an entire loaf of bread today on on the MakerBot Replicator™. MakerBot Industries continues to demonstrate its dedication to putting the tools of creativity into the hands of the those brilliant and bold enough to bring their imagination into the physical world.