Remember when Bre Pettis stepped down as the CEO of MakerBot in favor of a new role at the subsidiary’s parent company, Stratasys? If you do, then you’re one hep cat! And to keep you hep, here’s the scoop on the industry pioneer’s career change. Bre is now over at Stratasys’ Innovation Workshop, Bold Machines, a four-person team that partners with innovators in the field to explore new and exciting ways to implement Stratasys, MakerBot, and Solidscape 3D printers.
The first project that Bold Machines has begun working on is, as Yogurt put it in Spaceballs, “Moichandising, moichandising!” Bold Machines has created a 3D printable character named Margo from which they will derive an animated feature film. As Bre explains in a Bold Machines blog post:
About two years ago, [Bold Machine’s co-founder Robert Steiner] and I came into work on a Saturday to spend some time with a whiteboard. We added some structure to an idea that I’d had to make all the characters for a movie. We developed characters, got models made, and now we have done the whole movie-making backwards by starting with the merchandising. It’s all 3D printable movie merchandising, of course. We’re looking forward to conversations with film-makers about bringing Margo to the silver screen.
Margo is a smart young detective. Her parents have gone missing on a space exploration mission. She receives a cryptic message and a key that leads her to discover her parents secret laboratory under the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s a cutting edge laboratory full of contraptions, robots, and a jet pack for her dog. She’s going to need all the advanced tech she can get because she’s also just uncovered a sinister plot schemed up by a local business mogul, Mr. Walthersnap, who turns out to be a bad guy.
The outside innovator that Bold Machines has teamed up with for the Margo project is artist and illustrator Jose Alves da Silva, who has drawn up the characters for the film/downloadable content. The backstory for Margo is currently being developed by Steiner with the help of Anthony Wille at MakerBot. Though no film has yet been created, you can already download and print the title characters via Thingiverse, with Bold Machines planning to release a new character every Monday. All that’s missing is the cinematic plot to make you feel any affinity for them.
Despite the boldness/inventiveness underscored by Pettis in his post, prioritizing merchandising over programming is something we’ve all grown quite accustomed to, with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles being the most absurd and Toy Story representing the most fully-realized incarnation of the practice. Given the past success of such a model, Stratasys may have just established itself as a toy-making powerhouse capable of competing with Hasbro. Unless, as a species, we’ve grown tired of the increasingly transparent efforts of marketing representatives to sell us stuff we don’t need. Then, they may have lumped themselves in with the old guard instead of leading the charge of the new guard. Not that they’re the only ones guilty of doing so. We’ll have to see where they head with this and their later projects, though, to really know what the future holds.
Stratasys’ Innovation Workshop will be branching out from this first project, as well, and are looking for more businesses and individuals to help them realize their goals. If you’re interested in participating, you can contact them at the Bold Machines website. And don’t forget to tell us your thoughts on the new Stratasys endeavor below!
