3D Printers

Wow! We were fortunate enough to receive a donation of 2-3D makerbot printers. We decided on the Makerbot 2 instead of the 2x after finding that the 2X was reported to be slightly more finicky. We chose to purchase them at the Microsoft Store so that in the event of issues we might have some  local support.

Two New MakerBot 2's

We started off carefully, even going so far as to watch the youTube video of how to unpack your Makerbot - not sure that was necessary but it was a new toy and we certainly didn't want to damage it. The setup was straightforward and we found the setup video helpful.

Included with the machine was an SD card with pre-loaded things to make. This gives one the instant  gratification of being able to make something right away - we selected the comb. Amazing! We could not believe the accuracy of the machine. It did take some time and after the first minute of watching the printer we decided to go through a few steps required for us to be able to design and print from the computer (Apple mac).

We first found that we needed the makerware software. This software is a kind of translator/scaler/viewer and the last step required to talk to the 3D printer. We decided to use Sketchup to create our models. This proved to be slightly more complicated than we had thought but more on that later. Below are a couple of pictures of the printers.

The Initial Leveling Porcess

Made Our First Letter

Head of School Showing First Project

Downloaded file