3D printing

LulzBot's 3D printer and open biz model

LulzBot 3D Printer

Not all businesses can stand behind their products, and even fewer can stand on top of them. At LulzBot, it’s not uncommon to find the multi-talented and seriously committed team mounting their 3D printers upside down or bumping along Colorado mountain roads with a functioning 3D printer in tow—all in the interest of testing the durability and strength of their product under the most extreme conditions. And that’s only part of what makes LulzBot different.

Based in Loveland, Colorado, LulzBot designs, builds, and sells desktop 3D printers, plus parts and plastics, for entrepreneurs, inventors, engineers, and experimenters.

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Do you have access to a 3D printer?

3D printing the open source way

3D printing is changing the game. The way we strategize, plan, create, and do business is different now that objects can be materialized by adding layer upon layer. » Read more

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Do open source competitions really impact the movement?

your two cents

Sunglass, a platform for collaborating on 3D projects in real time, and DIYRockets, a global space company helping humanity establish a civilazation in space by building an open space frontier, are partnering in an effort to build rocket engines. » Read more

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Open Hardware Summit open to hybrid models

Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson

If there was an overarching message from the speakers at last week's Open Hardware Summit, particularly those in the first morning block, it's that openness isn't that critical. It sounds strange coming from a conference whose name starts with "open," but speaker after speaker talked about hybrids and doing whatever worked, not just doing what was open. » Read more

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How to use Inkscape to print 3D

3D printer

Inkscape is a magnificent open source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

It is used for many purposes like designing icons, textures, cartoons, graphics, etc, but did you know that you can now print what you draw in Inkscape on 3D? Thanks to TinkerCAD you can! » Read more

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NPR reports on open source 3D printing

NPR reports on open source 3D printing

I first encountered 3-D printing in Cory Doctorow's Makers, a science fiction novel set in the wake of economic armageddon. In Doctorow's imagined near-future world, hulking industrial bulwarks are doomed. Malls are deserted. But garages are alight with innovative activity, as heroic, entrepreneurial inventor-doers concoct new gizmos by repurposing abandoned commodities. » Read more

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How hackerspaces make any city an open source city

At SCaLE 9x, Leigh Honeywell gave a keynote on the history and future hackerspaces. (Watch the video.) She provided a history of the hackerspace movement both inside and outside of the US and its slow but steady spread through the world. She also talked about some of the things that hackerspaces are known for, and some notable things that the hackerspace she co-founded, Hacklab Toronto, had done. » Read more

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