MakerBot posted Bre’s interview with Shapeways the other day. There were some things that really resonated with me:
- Starting a business, surviving on Ramen, forgoing sleep, and rushing a prototype to market. I started my own business three years on a shoe-string budget by working on my idea during my off hours. Doing something I love and earning money doing it is an incredibly rewarding experience. I highly recommend it.
- Most MakerBot owners are not just engineers and architects, but people who are just excited about personal manufacturing. I’m not an engineer, architect, or any kind of sciency-techy kinda guy by trade or training. One thing I try to remind people is – if I can build and get a MakerBot up and running, so can you. In any case, I may not be someone sick of waiting on a jet pack, but I’m totally psyched about having a robot that can build anything I can dream up.
- If you’re bored, you’re not living life. Find something you love and believe in and do it every single day, whether or not you get paid to do it. Start doing it right now, because you don’t have a moment to lose.
- Crowdsourcing. I have a batch 9 MakerBot which came with printed pulleys. However, by the time batch 9 rolled around there was no longer a need for printed pulleys. Bre hints that the crowdsourcing program is going to come back later this year. I suppose in the meantime I could put together a big pile of Mendel parts – but I’m going to wait until I’m printing ABS on a heated build platform or finally got the nerve to try out some PLA.