Earlier this year, Makerbot announced in its most recent bloodletting that it would focus more on the education market. Today we’re seeing some of the fruits of that decision. First up is “My MakerBot,” what the outfit describes as a cloud-enabled browser-based printer monitoring platform that’s compatible with Chromebooks (which are incredibly popular in the classroom) and Autodesk’s Tinkercad 3D design software.
More than that, Makerbot will also release Makerbot in the Classroom, a guide for teachers containing lesson plans and nine different 3D-printing projects. Those nine projects are “a small sampling of hundreds of lesson plans” that educators can access via Thingiverse’s Education portal. Teachers apparently downloaded some 14,000 lesson plans last month alone.
If education can stop the layoffs at Makerbot, targeting the education sector — seemingly the only place that’s seeing much growth for 3D printing — seems like it could work out pretty well for the beleaguered firm.
