(Our friends at Hive76 urged us to set this up, so we took the liberty of using their successful pledgie as, um, inspiration.)

Q: What’s this all about?
A: NYC-based MakerBot Industries is rapidly expanding with their wildly successful Cupcake CNC. We at Crash Space have been hosting Los Angeles MakerBot owners meetings and felt that we needed to have one ourselves so we could learn more about them, and help share that knowledge.

Q: What does the Cupcake CNC do?
A: It’s a 3-D printer, so it prints objects, not ink. Printed objects are extremely sturdy; they won’t crumble when you touch them so you can actually print out objects you can use in everyday life. Obviously since the makerbot prints in ABS plastic this is great for rapid prototyping. Check out: http://www.thingiverse.com/ for some examples.

Q: What will we use it for?
A: Everything.

Q: How do we get one?
A: While the schematics are open source (this robot is a combination of open source software AND hardware), MakerBot Industries sells a super cheap and readily available kit. So we’re going to raise the funds to buy this kit and then build it at Crash Space!

Once we get the kit then we’ll all pitch in together to learn how to assemble it, given the experiences we’ve seen first hand with the Makerbot Owners group, we expect going from kit to working bot will take about 2-3 weeks.

The absolute best part of the Cupcake CNC is that it is completely extensible — when a new design comes out we can just download the files for the the new parts, print them out as solid plastic parts, and then upgrade our own machine.

Q: Why should I help Crash Space get this?
A: If you are already a member this will help add something extremely useful to the space that we can all benefit from. If you aren’t a member but want to contribute anyway, you’ll be invited to all the ‘building’ sessions and get a (yet to be determined) discount on upcoming Makerbot classes. If you are considering buying your own, this is a great way to learn how they work and see other people make the big mistakes so you won’t have to when you do it yourself.

Got questions? Contact Sean Bonner, 213-446-3315 or http://www.crashspace.org