The Makerbot is, as I type, making a barrel puzzle for a 7th grader. Some upper school students wandered by and one declared, “That is the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life. EVER.” Earlier this morning, the Makerbot made an airplane designed by a 6th grader. Yesterday, another 6th grader designed and printed a little racecar.
What’s a Makerbot? Watch the video below, made by my coworker, for a quick description of this fun 3-D printer that is sparking the creativity of many of our middle schoolers.
VERY COOL! What material does the machine use to make the designs and how expensive is it?
The material is a plastic filament that the machine melts down. It’s kind of like LEGO plastic.
It looks like you can now buy an assembled machine for $1750. We bought ours unassembled, and it took about 6 weeks for three people (not me!) to put it together–very complicated process, from what I could see.