MakerBotting
I’m off to a really productive start.
Yesterday I printed a few small projects for some grade 6 students on the MakerBot. The students designed these on TinkerCAD.com: a ruler, two couches (one shaped like an S) and the “Melanie” name plates.
I’d really much prefer if students did their own printing, but they are so over-scheduled that it’s hard for them to handle their own print-queue, so I wind up doing a lot of printing for them. I’m hearing from other school MakerBot operators that this is a common problem.
Here’s an idea for a possible solution. Students check a website to look for an ethernet link to an open MakerBot (we have three set up right now). If they find that one is being unused, they can send their file to that MakerBot over the network. Of course, someone would have to be in the lab to remove the finished print. This setup would require a bit of hacking, as MakerBots don’t have an ethernet port, but I think it should be possible to hook up a Lantronix Xport.
An easier solution might be to send the Gcode file to a dropbox, then use a Screen Sharing application to control a remote computer connected to the MakerBot. It would still be helpful to have a site that told you which MakerBots were open (and what color ABS was on that bot). I’ll have to try this sometime soon.