Tufts E-News: If You Build It…
Will Langford, who runs the Tufts Robotics Club, had a nice article about robots, people, engineering, and MakerBot on his school’s blog. Cool!
Looking at engineering on a broader level, Langford says it’s the responsibility of engineers and product designers to “to situate their solutions within the context that it’s needed for.” He’s getting some of that real-world experience through an internship with MakerBot Industries, a Brooklyn-based start-up that uses computer-aided design software to produce 3-D pieces like his dorm room coat hook.
The way the printer works is both simple, and slightly magical. Using a small, heated platform, plastic tubing is fed through the top of the printer and slowly melted and cooled. Currently limited by the platform size, which is between four and six inches in diameter, the printer is great for building smaller scaled pieces, from salt shakers to earrings.
“Their whole aim is to make these 3-D printing machines that usually only universities and research institutions have, because they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and make them available to a lot more people for a thousand dollars,” he says.
Having purchased a MakerBot printer himself, Langford says he is excited by the ease of assembly, which will make it more accessible to not just DIY-ers, but also the average consumer.
“It’s Ikea,” Langford says with a laugh. “A lot of people just want to be able to design their own things and have them now and not have to just accept whatever design Sony or whatever huge corporation determines is best.”
And Langford continues to make more things: glasses to share on the digital design site Thingiverse.com, or 3-D printed jewelry to sell on Etsy, an online storefront.
“I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be stuck in the normal engineering setting, designing normal things,” he says. “I want to be testing assumptions. I want to fully physically realize my ideas as much as possible.”
