I took my Ultimaker to BOTACON 0 (the first BOTACON of, I’m sure, many BOTACON’s to come!). There, I was giving a talk on the collaborative ecosystem that is emerging around digital fabrication. Bre Pettis and his Makerbot colleagues have given me ample opportunity to demonstrate the Ultimaker, which many people were seriously impressed by.
Photo by John Abella
Photo by John Abella
What I really liked about Botacon was the diversity of the talks. Some were about the development process, 3D printable transistors and OLEDs, the age of matter compilers, what it means for children to grow up with 3D printers, how to print intriguing shapes based on math and parametric design, how we can still define the word ‘robot’, anthropomorphizing robots, paint bots, etc. etc. There were many more talks that had a serious impact, together making it into a hugely successful event.
My presentation, figures from my research (PDF). Photo by John Abella
Above is a graph taken from my research (PDF) into the viability of open source hardware.
There weren't enough ladies at the event, so I printed some more during the conference. 
Photo by John Abella.
Some more photo’s in this gallery:
Many people stayed around until after the conference, allowing people that knew each other to also meet face-to-face. After the conference I’ve been hacking another extruder onto my Ultimaker at the awesome and renowned Hackerspace “New York City Resistor”, where there are always nice people around that are doing the most interesting projects.
Now I’m off to Boston, where I’ll be visiting my friend Mako and visiting the MIT Media-lab’s FabLab, where Ilan Moyer studies. Ilan, who was also speaking at BOTACON, is one of the developers of the Fab-In-A-Box, which has been an important inspiration for the Ultimaker’s XY positioning. Most other open source 3D printing bots have serial kinematics, which in some cases requires motors to be part of the moving mass. The Bowden cable concept, inspired by Ed Sells and further developed by myself, allows even less moving mass because the extruder can extremely light. The extremely low moving mass of the Ultimaker and Fab-In-A-Box allows these machines to move much more rapidly. This has been key to allowing it to print at 150 mm/s, while the default at which many people are currently printing is 33 mm/s.
L. Rodrigues, one of the 3D printer fanatics at the scene, made a nice movie at Botacon 0 that features the Ultimaker:
Wish I could have been there! I’m glad it was fun.
Also, any idea when you are going to start selling the Ultimaker in the shop?
Welcome to Boston!
Botacon was definitely a good time and it was great to meet you & a whole bunch of other folks.
I’m really looking forward to more news about the Ultimaker – was very impressed by what I saw at the show..
Wow… wish I would have known about this sooner. Would have been awesome to be there! Hopefully the next one will be here on the East Coast and I’ll be able to make it.
And if you’re looking for anyone to do any beta testing on the Ultimaker before you go into production let me know!
Ziet er prachtig uit allemaal.
Voor iemand die door haar handicap zelf niets kan maken maar wel creatief en goed met tekenprogramma’s is, wil ik zo’n Ultimaker maken. Solderen kan ik wel. Zijn er ergens van die workshop-pakketten te krijgen??
I too am waiting to see when you will sell the machine as a kit. I have been delaying buying a 3D printer because it looks like yours will be a very good value, and has a very impressive design that addresses many problems.
If you need another hackerspace to help in the US with stocking or demonstrating your design, our new hackerspace in Wisconsin (Sector 67) can help.
I LOVE 3d printers, but I`ve never had/used one!
I`ve been following this blog for quite a long time and I haven`t bought a 3d printer yet because I think this one will be the best option. with a good price and good print quality.
I want to be one of the first ones to have a Ultimaker 3D printer! and as i`m Brazilian, I really hope you will ship this to Brazil! Come on don`t let me down after so long following this printer!
But i`m kind of sad how you haven`t posted any updates on the printer in a long time.. please add more videos! =]
Good luck, Keep up the work.
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Gabs