The MakerBot 3D Ecosystem is growing, including a range of practical and fun apps to create models for printing on accompanying MakerBot 3D printers. The latest addition to the MakerBot-Ready Apps Portal is 3Dponics, the 3D printable hydroponics start-up that funded their modest Kickstarter campaign last summer. The Canadian company has now launched its 3Dponics Customizer, allowing MakerBot users to design their own 3D printable hydroponic gardening tools.
With the 3Dponics Customizer, users can change the shape, size, and orientation of a number of 3Dponics printable hydroponic planters meant for growing any number of plants and vegetables without access to a substantial garden. Using any platform, from iOS to Windows, users have access to a simple and easy-to-use interface for creating their own hydroponic planters.
Michael Golubev, Founder and CEO of 3Dponics Inc., says of the announcement, “Now that the 3Dponics Customizer is a MakerBot-Ready App, we expect more people will build 3Dponics, since getting started will be easier and faster. Not only that, but it will be more fun and educational. We expect this app will encourage MakerBot users to take on more meaningful 3D-printing projects, to get creative with their designs and to build the most efficient 3Dponics system yet.”
The app is not only a big step for 3Dponics, which also recently partnered with 3DPrinterOS for a promotional campaign, but a big step for MakerBot and would-be home gardeners. As industrialized nations, fraught with the alienation caused by globalized manufacturing, find comfort and safety in locally-sourced food and goods, a new generation of DIY enthusiasts is cropping up. The Maker revolution encompasses not only DIY hardware and software, but foods and crafts, with Makers seeking their own gardens to ensure that their own foods are ethically grown and GMO-free. MakerBot, then, is adding a very useful and, potentially, sought-after product to their MakerBot-Ready Apps Portal.
