By Emily Gertz
Just a few years ago, 3-D printing was the obscure obsession of a few hard-core tech hobbyists, engineer-artists, and design theorists. But now the medium–also called “fabbing,” as in small-scale fabrication–may be teetering on the edge of the mainstream, thanks to a recent $10 million infusion into the two-year-old company MakerBot Industries, which sells a compact 3-D printer as both a build-it-yourself kit and a pre-assembled machine.
Venture funders Foundry Group led the round, which also included Bezos Expeditions, True Ventures, RRE, and individual angel investors. “We believe MakerBot has the potential to be the Apple or HP of the 3D printing market and are honored that we get to be part of the effort,” blogged Foundry’s Brad Feld in late August.
According to co-founder Bre Pettis, Brooklyn-based MakerBot will use the $10 million investment to develop its next generation printer, stock up on inventory, and expand its technical staffing. This should allow it to expand sales, particularly of the ready-to-use, pre-assembled fabbers.
“Our goal is to democratize 3-D printing,” says Pettis, by which he means making 3-D printers so ubiquitous in community centers and elementary schools around the country “that any kid has access to a machine that can make them anything they want.”
Pettis is spoke Thursday at the Open Hardware Summit. The day-long confab is a preamble to this weekend’s Maker Faire in New York City.
Pettis told TPM’s Idea Lab that he’ll be announcing a “huge leap forward in the technology” at the summit: the “Lucky Number Stepstruder MK7.” It’s an upgrade to the printer’s extruder–the part that emits the plastic that builds the 3-D object–that can work with particularly thin plastic filaments and presumably execute more finely detailed designs.
To use MakerBot’s “Thing-O-Matic” 3-D printer, the user uploads a digital design file to the machine. It then “prints” the object detailed in the design by melting a filament of ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) or PLA (poly lactic acid) plastic and emitting the material in minute drops.
From a plastic nut or bolt, to a chess piece, to a bust of Stephen Colbert, and just about anything in between– the object is created layer by layer, then quickly hardens and cures into a strong, finished item.
One major roadblock to popularizing 3-D printing historically has been the cost of the machine: MakerBot’s Thing-O-Matic kit costs $1,299, while the fully assembled machine runs $2,500. That’s certainly far less than the several thousands it cost to build a home fabber toward the beginning of the Aughties, and much cheaper than an industrial 3-D printer, which can cost up to a half-million dollars.
In fact, it’s been cheap enough for ardent early adopters to propel MakerBot’s first two years of sales to early profitability (according to Pettis).
But it seems safe to assume that the average American consumer won’t warm up to desktop fabrication until the price for a plug-and-print fabber comes down to around $1,000 at most (the cost of a basic-config white Apple MacBook, just for comparison).
Pettis allows that in underwriting an expansion of MakerBot’s operations, the new funding may lead to a less expensive version of the Thing-O-Matic, but he isn’t committing to either a lower price or a particular price point. (“I can’t make many predictions,” he says prudently.)
MakerBot has been smartly and actively cultivating its devoted user community. The company runs “Thingiverse,” an online home to “digital designs for physical objects.” Here enthusiasts can share (or simply find) design files, exchange tips, support each other’s 3-D printing efforts, and achieve internet fame when their results are particularly fun, effective, or innovative.
Since the Thing-O-Matic (as well as its predecessor, the MakerBot Cupcake) is open source, anyone can hack and change the machine, and share the results, without fearing the threat of copyright infringement lawsuits.
3-D printing’s most compelling potential may rest in how could disrupt consumerism as we’ve known it for the past several generations. Why have your pocket picked at Target, WalMart, or Home Depot the next time you need a screw, doorknob, or spatula, when you can just create what you need right on your desktop, or at the friendly neighborhood fabbing club–or even out of dozens of small objects to build into one big thing?
“3-D printing offers an interrupt mechanism for the consumer cycle,” says Pettis.
For the past several generations, “we’ve grown up thinking about acquiring things we need as going to the store,” he says. But having a 3-D printer available “gives you ‘MakerBot goggles,’ so you being to think about what you need, and ask: ‘Could I make it myself?'”
Emily Gertz is a freelance journalist and editor based in New York City. She is the co-author, with Patrick Di Justo of Wired magazine, of the forthcoming O’Reilly book Environmental Monitoring With Arduino. She’s also a contributor to Worldchanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century. You can follow her on Twitter at @ejgertz.
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