Institute For The Future

Makerbot Day 5 (Part 1/2): It's Alive! (sort of)

I have no doubt that February 26 will go down in history as a momentous day. On Saturday morning, after an evening spent fine tuning the current of my Thing-O-Matic's motors, calibrating the PID (don't ask) of the extruder to stabilize the temperature so that the plastic would be dispensed in a controlled, even stream instead of like toothpaste out of an almost-cashed out tube, and generally hoping that the next step was the last hurdle before I could proclaim my MakerBot alive. (Turns out I might have jumped the gun when I posted this:

Much like a dismembered frog leg twitches when an electric current is applied, TOM's first signs of functionality were more a taunting facsimile of life than a true instance of it).

 

Waking up on Saturday morning, I was resolved that this would be the day that I got it working. This would be the day that I became a personal fabricating laboratory. And at approximately 9:30 am on February 26, 2011, I entered the Future when I printed this:

 

Proud of finally reaching the end of my month-long Odyssey, I fired off an email to my Dad so that I could share my historic accomplishment with him. Following up seconds later with a phone call, I implored my parents to check their email. They knew from the tone of my voice that something amazing had happened -- a promotion, perhaps? An offer to turn my essay-length strained analogy of cricket as a model for surviving the 21st century into a book? Whatever it was, it was big:

Dad: Opening up the email...

Me: You are going to LOVE this.

*extended pause*

Me: You there?

Dad: Yeah. So why did you send me a picture of butter?

*click*

Yes, I hung up on him. Although in retrospect there is no way he could have known that, contrary to appearances, I had sent him a calibration block that demonstrated that my TOM was flawlessly constructed, his remark stung.

Most surprising to me, however, was what happened next. After all this time, I had finally unlocked the mechanical capabilities of the TOM, and was now able to start into what everyone kept telling me was the ultimate payoff for this work - I could print whatever I wanted!

Sitting in my living room on Saturday, it dawned on me that I had no idea what exactly it was that I wanted. (Note, I'm talking about what I wanted out of the Makerbot. As nice as it would have been, I wasn't expecting the machine to figure out my life's purpose for me. Little did I know that it *would*. No, it actually didn't.) Although I had started to educate myself on how to create and refine objects in Google SketchUp. I was still extremely far from being able to produce anything in the digital that actually resembled its physical equivalent. Moreover, even when putting aside my CAD (computer aided design) limitations, trying to think of something useful, interesting, or even plain cool completely stumped me. 

And so, I am shamed to admit that after finally besting my nemesis, I let the TOM sit unused for almost a full 24 hours. Which actually led to some pretty awkward conversations, as the people who followed my odyssey messaged me to ask, "so what have you made?" I wished that I had an answer, but I was stuck in this odd zone between technical capability, personal design limitations, and the strong feeling that the first thing I printed should be something of my own creation.

 

In my next post I'll explore what I finally came up with, and will share some pictures of the various things I have ended up printing!