When the first MakerBot appeared in 2009, the idea of 3D printing was a bit foreign to all but the most advanced fabricators. Company founder and CEO Bre Pettis says he used to get asked: “So what, do you have to wear special glasses to see it?” Three years later and with 13,000 units sold, Pettis introduced MakerBot’s second generation of DIY 3D printers: The MakerBot Replicator 2. You load a digital rendering into the tool’s MakerWare software, set it to print, and the $2,199 machine conjures a model from a spool of corn-based plastic. Read the full story at Gizmodo.