Tag Archives: makerbot poll results

What I learned from my MakerBot poll

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Here’s what I learned from the various questions:

  1. Why are you interested in MakerBot?
    • About 2/3 of people answered with some variation of “General interest in technology, robots, and stuff”, “Making ideas real, inventing, and prototyping”, or “MakerBots are awesome”.
  2. Have you heard or read about RepRap or RepRap.org?
    • Just about everyone polled (93%) who has heard about MakerBot has heard about RepRap.  I found this result a little surprising since MakerBot tends to get all the press.  My guess is that people see or hear about a MakerBot, do a little research, and then find out about RepRap.
  3. Have you tried to design anything in 3D?
    • 90% of people said they had tried to design things in 3D.  Given the ubiquity of computing power and 3D modeling software, especially Sketchup this isn’t shocking.
  4. Have you tried to upload anything to Thingiverse?
    • Only about 48% of people polled said they’ve tried to upload things to Thingiverse.  I suspect this result is as high as it is because of the recent MakerBot contest – but I have nothing to back up this guess.  I had designed several things before buying my MakerBot – but didn’t start uploading anything until after it was finished.
  5. If you had a MakerBot, what would you want to download from Thingiverse and print?
    • Nearly 1/3 of people polled named toys, puzzles, games, or game pieces as something they wanted to print off of Thingiverse.  This was more than “RepRaps/RepStraps”, “tools”, and “art/decorations” combined.
  6. If you had a MakerBot, what would you want to design and print?
    • It was about a four way tie for “Toys”, “Tools”, “Replacement or spare parts/stuff for fixing things”, and “Prototyping, designs, inventions, and making custom things.”
  7. If you had a MakerBot, what would you use it for? (Help starving children, make toys, make tools, etc)
    • More than a quarter of people of polled said “Toys.”  This time, “Tools”, “Replacement or spare parts/stuff for fixing things”, and “Prototyping, designs, inventions, and making custom things” were all about equal.
  8. Why haven’t you purchased a MakerBot yet?
    • 28% of people already had a MakerBot and 26% said they didn’t have $1,000.00 to purchase an awesome robot.  Another 8% said they were planning to purchase a MakerBot.  The most surprising results to me were 8% saying they wanted to wait for further improvements and another 4% saying they didn’t think they have what it takes to build one. 1
  1. A truly tragic 2% chose “My parents were killed by awesome robots.”  Even though my own MakerBot has already violated each of the three laws of robotics, I had never thought robot-human violence would ever have gotten this bad. [↩]