One of our guest bloggers, Riley, had some friends over to help set up his new Cube last weekend. Riley and his dad, David, have been using 3D Systems’ Rapman printer for the last year with Riley’s friends and classmates. The kids got so into 3D printing that David continues to run a 3D Design and Printing Lab for them after school lets out throughout the whole summer!

Read on to find out what David, Riley and his friends’ first impressions of the Cube were (and first prints):

Out of the Box!

Al though the cube arrived on Tuesday, we needed to wait until the weekend to get my friends together and let it out of its box. The lab we started supports a few schools – Discovery, Communitas & University Prep – so we had friends from each over to the house. We also had parents, grandparents and our friend Jerry from the VLAB at Stanford University.

We had multiple printers up and running so that our friends could see the huge progress in printer ease of use from the Rapman 3.1 that we built last year and the new Cube. Everyone agreed that the Cube really looked and performed like a “turnkey” system should. Right out of the box it only took me and the other kids about 10 minutes to get everything set up and the first print going.

Riley and Alec connect the Cube to wireless

We  loaded media, got the authorizations, connected the wireless and began printing in less than 20 minutes. And the Cube was printing with really good accuracy on the first try.

First print: rook

Experiencing the magic of the first print

When I compare this with the 32 hours it took us to build the Rapman and the additional 8-10 hours it took us to “tune” the Rapman, the Cube really does represent a big jump in printer technology. This goes from the “kit/semi-home brew” level to a genuine “plug’n'print” tool.

Its definitely a different experience learning to build a 3D printer and playing with tuning, but the Cube’s easy set up makes it accessible for a larger audience (who maybe doesn’t want to spend 40 hours in the garage setting up a printer).

Big thanks to Riley and David for sharing their first Cube experience with us and be sure to check back regularly to find out what Riley and his friends are printing this summer!