3D-printing firm MakerBot opened its new — and much larger — factory in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Friday.
The 50,000-square-foot building is located in the borough's Sunset Park neighborhood. Its main purpose is to accommodate the company's growing staff — they plan to increase by more than 50 over the summer — and extend production on a product for which demand is rapidly growing.
"We were 120 employees at the start of the year. Now we're at 267," Bre Pettis, MakerBot's CEO, told Mashable. "The game is on. There was no market for this when we started, so we kind of had to create one from the ground up. People are starting to realize that, with this, you really have the superpower to create anything. It's the next industrial revolution."
Clients range from schools and entrepreneurs to tinkerers and big corporations like NASA — everyone seems to want in on the action.
The new factory operates in a traditional step-by-step format, with sub-assembly, assembly, inspection and packaging stations. All printers are hand-assembled using materials from Brooklyn-based manufacturers; a few of the smaller pieces are even 3D printed by MarketBot themselves.
You may have seen 3D printing in the news a lot over the past few weeks — specifically, regarding the use of the technology to print firearms. Pettis assured that it's not the kind of activity MakerBot encourages.
"We make MakerBots with the intention of them being used creatively and positively," he said. "On Thingiverse" — the company's website with designs available for download — "you have almost a hundred thousand options. We have a 'No Deadly Weapons' policy, so when people upload designs for things like that, people can mark it as 'inappropriate' and it comes down. That's our stance on it."
We were lucky enough to get a sneak peek at the factory's ribbon cutting on Friday — which was appropriately snipped by a pair of 3D-printed scissors — and tour the different work stations. Take a look through the photos above.
Here's a look at the firm's MakerBot Replicator 2 in action, too, creating a set of toy apples:
MakerBot launched in Brooklyn in 2009. The MakerBot Replicator 2 is available for $2,199, and the MakerBot Replicator 2X sells for $2,799. Find out more on the firm's website.
Do you own a 3D printer? Or do you plan to buy one? Tell us what you think about the technology below.
Image by Mashable
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