Getting Started with MakerBot

Chapter 2. The House That MakerBot Built

In which this universal tool grants new eyes to see your world, the power to make almost anything, and the ability to solve problems that couldn’t be solved before.

When you have a Makerbot, you start looking at things—and if you want them, you think about making them with your MakerBot instead of buying them. When things break, you could start stressing out about where you’ll find a replacement part, but when you have a MakerBot, you start thinking about how you can make your own part to fix it.

In our consumer-focused, disposable world, a MakerBot is a revitalizing force for all your broken things. Having a MakerBot allows you to make things instead of buying them—and in a consumer-focused world, that’s a super power worthy of a superhero!

Besides fixing things and creating them from scratch, you can invent new things and develop alternative solutions to problems. With the cost of filament so low, the cost of failure is low and that means that it’s not going to cost you very much to try out an idea; if it doesn’t work, you can adjust the design and try it again and again. This ability to iterate is a powerful force in the universe and it makes you unstoppable. So many people try something and if it doesn’t work, they give up. With the ability to iterate and make things over and over again, you can become an unstoppable force of iteration and invention—and you’ll try and try again.

While the replicating possibilities for a MakerBot are infinite, ...