Quick announcement! Now through July 14th, print out Maker Studio Gears, help your creative kid build something awesome (or, for you creative adults, go for it yourself!), submit it on social media @MakerBot or @ThinkFun using #KidsMakeIt. Why? The chance to win amazing prizes! Five "Master Makers" will win 3D printer filament and 6 of ThinkFun's newest and best releases. Click the link for more info, and good luck! http://hubs.ly/y0YqYR0

This Thing is an open source edition of our Maker Studio Gears Construction Set that we sell on Amazon. We give you all the files to print your own parts, and also we include PDF files of the Instruction Manual and Build Assembly Diagrams for four machines that use these parts. We also 10 open ended Engineering Challenges (PDF file) to stretch your creative thinking muscles.

The four machines you can build from our PDF instructions:

• A Macaroni Race Car
• A Cable Car

• A 3 Wheeler  
  

• A Motorcycle

After this you use your imagination to build your own engineering challenges. For inspiration, watch this Made by Bella video

Our concept is to make it easy for you to create customized machines - cars, trucks, trolleys and others - that can move and/or lift things. You use our engineering parts to build a machine skeleton, then customize your machine body by using recycled boxes, bottles and other household items. Give this some thought, it's amazing what you can come up with.

Check out this Princess Carriage, from Made by Bella

Each of our four assembly builds in our Maker Studio Gears Set produces a different machine that serves a different purpose and demonstrates its own engineering principles.

Beyond this, the 10 Engineering Challenges are designed to stretch your thinking; they are open ended and will push you to think creatively about how to achieve a solution.

For the ultimate in creative solutions, check out how Bella takes care of her loose tooth! Made by Bella Toothpull Challenge

Download and 3-D print the following STL files, find these in “Thing Files”

Long Connector Plates (2 pieces)  
Medium Connector Plates (3 pieces)  
Large Gear (1 piece)  
Medium Gear (1 piece)  
Large Wheels (2 pieces)  
Medium Wheels (2 pieces)  
Small Wheels (2 pieces)  
Hub Caps (13 pieces)  
Hole Punch (2 pieces)  

Download the following PDF files for reference

Maker Studio Gears Set Printed Instructions including inventor story  
Macaroni Race Car build diagrams  
Cable Car build diagrams  
3 Wheeler build diagrams  
Motorcycle build diagrams  
10 Engineering Challenge Cards and 10 Tips  

NOTE: If all this printing is too much work, you can buy a commercial version of this Maker Studio Gears Construction Set on Amazon.