After a couple of hours of final construction and correcting all the reversed cables etc., it moved. And heated up. And extruded the first piece of plastic. The room filled with joy, cheers and the olfactory sensation of success.

Of course, due to our noobishness on the controller, we managed two minutes later to block the small nozzle with plastic… Now we’ll have to take apart the extruder, the most complex and difficult piece of the whole bot, and clean it from the inside.

Too tired to do this after one o’clock in the morning, we called it a night and powered down the machine. But not before we’ve played the Imperial March on our very own machine at least once.

The tools with which we do design today, are our tools. We make the shapes, people buy and use the shapes. Tomorrow, this will be different. The tools to make things and define your world, will be available to everybody.

Chris Bangle (Former Design Director, BMW) in the documentary Objectified

BTW: Construction of Makerbot #216 will resume shortly after the break.

We’re slowly progressing. After the quick start two weeks ago, we’re now building the most delicate part of all: The plastic extruder with the heater barrel and the thermic sensor.

We would have loved to show you a video with at least the XY-carriage moving, but unfortunately our serial cable wasn’t up to the job. Theoretically it’s working…

The missing z-stage arrived today (Thanks for the quick and uncomplicated delivery, Makerbot Industries-guys). Construction will resume immediatly.

And for all those who asked to see our cupcake: There will be an Open-Manufaktur-Day, sooner or later. Everyone will get to play.

This sunday we started building our MakerBot (#213).

The construction set is great! Easy to build, well thought through. The building documentation on the MakerBot Wiki is extensive, althought some steps are slightly differents due to small changes in the newest revision of the construction kit. But hey, it keeps us on our toes and in the end, we will know our bot inside and out…

After six hours, we were done with the main chassis, the XY-carriage and the little electronics that needed soldering. We are now in the process of building the extruder.

Unfortunately we hit a little snag: The Z-stage, an acrylic plate which will hold the extruder, is missing. It’s quite a critical piece and without access to a precision laser cutter, we will have to wait upon the delivery of the part before we can complete the printer. Thanks to Makerbot Industries for the quick and uncomplicated handling of the replacement.

So far it’s a lot of fun. We get more and more excited by the minute. It’s gonna be the future soon.

Imagine my excitement when I discovered that there’s an Open Source movement building their own printers. While still outside my skills, this future-shaping technology was almost in my graps.

Enter MakerBot Industries: A New York-based collective of enthusiasts building (actually printing some parts) and selling a construction kit for their model called CupCake. Cheap, open, hackable, everything you wish for.

I got to have one. So I ordered one. Together with my friends Thomas and Fabian, we will build our very own 3D-printer and chronicle its life and play in this blog.

Stick around, the future is happing.