Good News and Bad News from MakerBot

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Jim Burke

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Sep 7, 2012, 12:45:12 PM9/7/12
to Power Racing Series
As you may know the good news is that MIT has entered the competition.

The bad news is unfortunately less fun.

Turns out Makerbot will not be providing replicators to our race winners for Maker Faire New York. Some significant changes in their organization have resulted in them being unable to offer replicators. Even though the wonderful folks I worked with were very enthusiastic with our offer and were very excited to support a series they loved, they were struck down via this new management approval process at the last minute. Apparently there are new rules to how Makerbot handles these sorts of things, and sadly they took a pass our community.

They will be providing a small care package to ALL teams that participate including small kits and shirts and stickers. Including some awesome 3D printed trophies.

Unfortunately that is not a replicator. I apologize to everyone for making the announcement too soon on the mailing list. Feel free to shoot me with nerf rounds for the mistake.

Hopefully they'll work with us on a larger scale in the future. Maybe next year!

Eli Richter

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Sep 11, 2012, 5:14:53 PM9/11/12
to power-rac...@googlegroups.com
Honestly, as much as it would have been really cool to win a replicator (because obviously 006 was going to take it), I think this might be for the best.

Having high value prizes would really encourage stretching the rules on things like budget, and could take a lot of the fun out of the race if it means we all start squabbling about how much is that uber motor is really worth? or did you really have a 600V 200A motor controller "laying around"?

Part of the fun of the series is that with only bragging rights and trinkets on the line, no one takes things too seriously. I'd hate to lose that.

That being said, if someone wants to donate prizes, maybe it could be some kind of participation based reward, like a raffle to all teams who can make the full series.  Thoughts?

-Eli
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