December 18, 2009 – MakerBlock

Mission critical decisions

Such as: Should I paint? What color(s)?

I’m thinking I should paint. I figure it will help the robot body stand up to a little extra wear and tear while looking cool.

Not white or black. That’s SOooo October 2009. I’m liking gray/gunmetal/silver. I’ve only seen pictures of one silver MakerBot and I rather liked it. (Thank you to RDon Ebben/Robostang 548 for posting pics of his MakerBot 347.) The picture is a little dark, so I don’t think I can see it to its full effect.

Just the other day a user named unrepentantgeek posted a Google Sketchup version of a MakerBot, to make it easy to test out paint/color schemes. URG – you’re the best! Thanks to you, I got to test out this color scheme:

Roughly a 50% gray on the outside, silver on the inside. (I figure I can’t rightfully name the machine Bender unless it has a shiny metal assplate, right?)

Printed Pulleys Assembled!

I’ve just take the first step to building my MakerBot! Admittedly, two of the bearings were already in the printed pulleys, but that’s just not the point. I’ve taken a material step towards building it! Huzzah!

Oh, and I don’t think I was supposed to have a pack of 8 extra bearings.

No, no, I’m supposed to have these 8 bearings. I suppose it would help if I read the directions. (I’m just so used to grabbing things and tossing them together and expecting them to work. I guess it’s a little more complicated than that when you’re building a robot, eh?)

Second Law, Schmecond Law

Unfortunately, in the haste to get the MakerBots out the door for the holidays the guys at MakerBot left out opto-endstop kits on some shipments. These guys have been super responsive even before I bought a kit from them, so I’m not that concerned. Frankly, it’s a little bit of a relief that I can skip the soldering stuff for now and move on to some of the pulley making steps.

In any case, as I understand it, these are not vital to the proper functioning of the MakerBot and that they’re really just a failsafe if the ‘bot forgets the second law of robotics.