IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 23

Copy that: When assembled,
the cupcake 3-D printer kit,
from makerbot, "photocopies"
physical objects at a halfmillimeter resolution.
Photos: Makerbot

That sent me on a severalweek detour in which I
corrupted the old firmware,
downloaded, compiled, and
configured new software,
ordered and assembled
new microcontrollerprogramming hardware,
learned about the secret
Java USB library that
actually works, then lost the
controlling PC to a power
surge and transferred its disk
to a new one-all because
spectrum.ieee.org

(as I found out later) only an
administrator can upload
new firmware for my
computer's configuration.
Eventually, after I set the
control program up to run
as root, everything worked.
It's amazing. It's addictive.
A tiny thread of molten
plastic squirts out of the
nozzle and solidifies into a
spoon or a coat hook or a
toy dump truck or a small
wrench. The pieces are

surprisingly strong. I now
have a mile-long list of items
to fab, including a shoehorn
holder, customized Lego
bricks, and a small statue of
our cat. Yes, there's software
out there to transform a
set of photographs taken
from different angles into
a 3-D representation.
Oh, and-shades of
the singularity, when
sophisticated robots will
manufacture even more

sophisticated robots,
ad infinitum-I also
plan to make parts for an
upgraded Cupcake, starting
with a stepper-motorbased extruder. And parts
for the original fabricator
I was going to build before
the Cupcake stepped in:
mounting brackets, gear
trains, maybe even some
circuit boards laid out
with etch-resist ink.
It's still not that easy,
of course. I've already
lowered the temperature
setting a few degrees,
but there are about a
hundred other interacting
settings-extrusion
speed, wall thickness,
turning radius, layer
height, cooling time, and
more-that can be tweaked
for the best possible
print. And then there's
the interesting sensation
when your PC loses contact
with a machine that
unconcernedly continues
to spew out hot plastic.
There's also the minor
detail that designing things
in three dimensions is
hard, and would be even if
all the available software
tools didn't have steep
learning curves. On the
other hand, OpenSCAD,
one of the design programs
I'm using, has a cone for
a design primitive. That
shoehorn holder will
eventually be a perfect fit.
-Paul Wallich

NovEmbEr 2011 * iEEE SpEctrum * NA

23



http://spectrum.ieee.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum November, 2011

IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - Cover1
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - Cover2
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 1
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 2
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 3
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 4
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 5
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 6
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 7
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 8
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 9
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 10
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 11
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 12
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 13
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 14
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 15
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 16
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 17
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 18
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 19
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 20
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 21
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 22
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 23
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 24
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 25
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 26
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 27
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 28
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 29
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 30
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 31
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 32
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 33
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 34
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 35
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 36
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 37
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 38
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 39
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 40
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 41
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 42
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 43
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 44
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 45
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 46
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 47
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 48
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 49
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 50
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 51
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 52
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 53
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 54
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 55
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 56
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 57
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 58
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 59
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 60
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 61
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 62
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 63
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 64
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 65
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 66
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 67
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 68
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 69
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 70
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 71
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 72
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 73
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 74
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 75
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 76
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 77
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 78
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 79
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 80
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 81
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 82
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 83
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 84
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 85
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 86
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 87
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 88
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 89
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 90
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 91
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - 92
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - Cover3
IEEE Spectrum November, 2011 - Cover4
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https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0213
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0113
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1212
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1012
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0912
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0812
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0712
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0612
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0512
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0412
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0312
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0212
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0112
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1211
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1111
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1011
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0911
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0811
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0711
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0611
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0511
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0411
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0311
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0211
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0111
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1210
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1110
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_1010
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0910
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0810
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/spectrum_na_0710
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