NVBOTS Wants To Make 3D Printers As Easy As Toasters

Right now 3D printing curriculums, if they exist, are fairly sparse. Putting a two thousand dollar machine in front of a grade schooler usually ends up in a lot of 3D printed Yoda heads and not much education while the learning curve for most 3D design tools is steep. That’s what the founders of NVBOTS, AJ Perez, Forrest Pieper, Christopher Haid, and Mateo Peña Doll, are looking to solve.

Their product, the NVPRO, is a 3D printer with a few interesting features. The two most interesting are the automatic removal system which pops parts off of the build plate when they are done and a built-in print server that allows you to print from any device. This means you can run large batches of prints from different users with each part popping off as its printed. This means a class of students can send jobs to a printer and then pick them up just as they would a laser printer.

The printer also supports a central “admin” who can check jobs before they are printed as and offers a set of pre-made objects for makers to use in order to build their own things. When you put it all together, you get a sort of one-stop-shop for 3D printing.

The company has raised $2 million in funding and has 74 users right now testing the service and printers.

“We have developed the only 3D printer that can run 24-7 without human interaction and that can be simply controlled from any device. Every other product on the market requires a skilled human operator to baby sit the machine and requires the use of a dedicated computer,” said Perez. In short, rather than requiring a special caste of engineers to manage 3D printers, the NVPRO can be as simple to use as a copier.

The team started the project when they ran into the frustration of 3D printing in a college environment (they went to MIT). Rather than design apps for existing printers, they built their own printer.

You can’t go out and buy one of these things, however. The company is essentially selling a subscription to use the printer and also sells the filament. An educational package costs $2,999 a year and allows for unlimited users and access to the part library. If this sounds pricy, consider that a standalone printer costs about the same and offers little in the way of support. Sure, a school could buy a $599 printer and set it up somewhere, but NVBOTS hopes to offer a bit more.

“NVBOTS is focused on helping students bring their ideas to life. Most 3D printing processes are far too cumbersome for students and teachers, prohibiting widespread adoption of a technology that offers a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach to education,” said Perez.

It’s a fascinating idea and one that could take some getting used to – just like 3D printing itself.https://vimeo.com/108068877

Comments

Workato Chat Bot Brings Enterprise Workflow Into Slack

As we head into 2016, enterprise chat applications like Slack are suddenly a hot commodity, and if you’re inside chat a good portion of the day the argument goes, you should be able to access other work without leaving the chat client. This is exactly what Workato’s newly announced chat bot, Workbot, is designed to do. Chat bots are small programs that integrate with a chat platform and provide some advanced type of functionality in a fairly easy fashion. The new Workbot-chat bot enables users to access and control over 100 enterprise applications such as a Salesforce CRM record, Quickbooks accounting information or Zendesk customer service interactions directly inside of Slack. One of the primary issues with early Enterprise 2.0 tools was that they were just another application busy employees needed to pay attention to. The idea here is to give users customer information directly in the context of the discussion they may be having...

Best Web Design Company in Pondicherry

#Technology has two faces. We all feel it, but sometimes can’t find words to describe it. #Ebooks are the best example to show the 0-1 nature of emotions the #technology evokes. #itwhere provide a #Best #solutions to #Growyourbusiness feel free to drop a #Mail info@itwheretech.co.in www.itwheretech.co.in

Montana-based mapping startup onXmaps raises a round of funding fit for Big Sky Country

A mapping startup based in Missoula, Mont., which allows users to download sophisticated offline topographic maps outlining public and private lands and a number of other features geared towards hunting, fishing and camping, has pulled in its first major outside funding. onXmaps has closed a $20.3 million Series A round led by Summit Partners. Bessemer Venture Partners, Millennium Technology Value Partners, Next Frontier Capital and NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke also participated in the round. The company is calling the fundraise one of the biggest ever among startups based in Montana. onX Hunt app This is impressively the first bout of outside funding that the 70-person startup has ever taken since being founded in 2009. The company’s founder and CEO Eric Siegfried, an avid outdoorsman himself, had created a more basic program to integrate these maps with his own Garmin GPS. After finding his friends were interested in having a product like this too, he put down $27k of his...

Phoenix OS is (another) Android-as-a-desktop

Google Android may have been developed as a smartphone operating system (and later ported to tablets, TVs, watches, and other platforms), but over the past few years we’ve seen a number of attempts to turn it into a desktop operating system. One of the most successful has been Remix OS , which gives Android a taskbar, start menu, and an excellent window management system. The Remix OS team has also generated a lot of buzz over the past year, and this week the operating system gained a lot of new alpha testers thanks to a downloadable version of Remix OS that you can run on many recent desktop or notebook computers. But Remix OS isn’t the only game in town. Phoenix OS is another Android-as-desktop operating system, and while it’s still pretty rough around the edges, there are a few features that could make it a better option for some testers. Some background I first discovered Phoenix OS from a post in the Remix OS Google Group , altho...

Visa confirms Coinbase wasn’t at fault for overcharging users

Yesterday, we wrote that Coinbase customers were being charged multiple times for past transactions. While some speculated that the erroneous withdraws were down to a Coinbase engineering issue, Coinbase issued a statement saying it wasn’t liable for the duplicate charges. The blame, instead, rested with Visa for the way it handled a migration of merchant categories for cryptocurrencies, Coinbase said. While you can read my post yesterday for an in-depth description of what happened, the basic gist is that Visa refunded and recharged (under a different merchant category) a month of old transactions. Many users saw the recharge come through before the refund processed, making it look like they were double charged. Honestly, the issue was likely exacerbated by existing payment rails — it’s normal for refunds to take multiple days to show up on credit and debit statements. But here’s where it gets weird — this morning Visa issued a statement to some publications shifting the blam...

Exciting Technology

Search This Blog