Inside UltiMaker's relaunch of MakerBot as an education-focused 3D printing brand

TCT’s Junior Editorial Content Producer Oli Johnson speaks to Andrea Zermeno, Education Marketing Manager at MakerBot, now an education focused entity within UltiMaker, about the relaunch of the brand.

by Oliver Johnson

24 October 2023

15:01

UltiMaker/MakerBot

In May 2022, desktop 3D printing leaders Ultimaker and MakerBot announced that they had agreed a deal that would see the two companies merge. The merger was then completed in September of the same year, and UltiMaker was launched.

The brand has launched a few machines in the year and one month since, with the MakerBot SKETCH Large being the first system under the new name last October, the UltiMaker S7 in January 2023, then the Method XL 3D printer in May. TCT received a sneak preview of the Method XL at RAPID + TCT 2023, where the company also announced that all of its hardware and software products would be rebranded.

The first significant phase of this rebrand was announced in October 2023, with UltiMaker announcing that MakerBot would be relaunched as an education-focused 3D printing brand, the only one in the world according to the company. As part of this rebrand, the company expanded MakerBot Certification, its 3D printing training and curriculum development programs, which are now available in multiple languages, including French, Spanish, German, and British English.

Andrea Zermeno, Education Marketing Manager at MakerBot spoke to TCT about the rebrand: “We always knew that we wanted to keep MakerBot alive or in the mix. We know that MakerBot is extremely recognised and trusted by educators, and had already been in the education segment for over 10 years. So we knew moving forward that we really wanted to keep the name, the legacy, and everything that it had built already. A lot of our products just outside of our 3D printers were already recognised as MakerBot products for education, so we wanted to keep that moving forward.”

In the announcement of the rebrand, UltiMaker said that there are MakerBot systems present in more than 10,000 schools and libraries across North America. The company says the expansion marks a significant milestone as MakerBot Education extends its resources, support, and expertise across the globe.

Speaking about the future goals for ‘MakerBot 2.0’, Zermeno told TCT: “In the past, MakerBot catered to both education and professionals, so we had printers for both. This was great, being able to provide a full comprehensive solution from a beginner to a professionals, but resources are always limited and we weren’t able to fully focus into education the way that some of us had envisioned. We spoke to educators all the time about how much they loved MakerBot and what other resources they would love to see, or what other support they would love to have. Now with MakerBot 2.0, we’re fully able to stand on MakerBot’s own two legs and say, we’re fully dedicated to education and here’s how we’re going to do it.

“We’re having our 3D printers now available worldwide, and the solution that comes with it, because its not just about the 3D printer, its about the training that comes with it, the support that used to be limited to just the U.S. Primarily because our training programs are only available in English. This year, we’ve really been able to make a lot of changes to make sure that the Sketch Classroom solution is available to everyone across the world. With our training program, we’ve launched it now in English, German, French, and Spanish, and we’ll have more languages to come, but we’re really excited to be able to take that step, just to better support all our educators, not just in the US, but across the world.”

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UltiMaker/MakerBot

MakerBot SKETCH Large 3D printer

The Sketch Classroom setup that is provided to schools features two 3D printers rather than one, allowing more access for students. Zermeno told TCT that to make the program more accessible, it was important to make it more economical for a district wide model that would make it easier for students across the district to have access to 3D printing training material and access to a design thinking curriculum. For schools that might not be able to afford a 3D printer, they can still access the knowledge and take part in courses without having a 3D printer on hand.

The Sketch ecosystem features MakerBot Sketch series 3D printers, MakerBot Certification Programs for Educators and Students, Curriculum Planning and Project Guides, and MakerBot CloudPrint. According to UltiMaker, MakerBot Certification offers the only 3D printing training programs certified by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), a non-profit organisation dedicated to accelerating education through technology.

Speaking about the importance of MakerBot Certification, Zermeno told TCT: “When teachers get new technology in the classroom, sometimes they’re the ones that are asking for this technology, many times its going to be the administrators or the principals that decide to get 3D printers. So sometimes, teachers aren’t even aware that they’re getting this technology, or they’re asking for it all year, they get it, and then they’re thinking, what do I do? Teachers are already busy enough as it is to find the time in the day. When they see a 3D printer in the room, they’re seeing a machine that might look a little scary to start with, and that could be similar for a lot of new pieces of technology that are brought into the classroom. When I worked with our support team, they would have many cases where teachers would be calling and they would say ‘Hey, I found a 3D printer in my classroom, I think it’s a MakerBot, what do I do?’ and there were so many instances where we saw that we needed to be able to provide more training here to the teachers, because 3D printing can be overwhelming, it can be scary before you even touch the printer.”

Zermeno continued: “We wanted to make sure that we were providing our teachers with the support system to give them the confidence to be able to use the printers, to not be scared to touch the printer, to turn it on or to load filament. We knew that if we gave them the confidence and the know how that they would then be able to better integrate that technology into the classroom.”

Speaking about taking from her first experiences with 3D printing and how they can be used to improve experiences for future generations, Zermeno told TCT: “I got my degree in Applied Mathematics around 2012, 2013, when I started to see the 3D printing bubble really expand, and I was excited as a student, but at the time, 3D printers were not as prevalent in schools as they are today, so I had no access to it, and it was not until I graduated that I found a makerspace that had a 3D printer, that just happened to be a MakerBot, and I went in for training and realised how cool the technology was, but also how overwhelming it looked. I know that there are resources that I missed when I was learning about 3D printing, so I want to make sure that all those questions I had, I’m answering for them before they come up so they feel like they’re much more confident in the process, they feel much more supported, and we remove a lot of that fear and those questions and uncertainty out of the process.”

Zermeno was recently in the state of Louisiana, visited the Calcasieu Parish school district, which purchased 400 MakerBot 3D printers, made up of 200 Sketch Classroom sets, for the entire district, with most of the printers are spread across elementary schools. Zermeno says that when the MakerBot team went to visit, first graders were already designing on Tinkercad, and the children were explaining why it was better to use supports for a certain model, their likes and dislikes about some of the settings, or how to design something better.

Zermeno told TCT: “It’s just so beautiful to see that knowledge, and then to see it multiple steps up across the rest of the elementary school grade levels. We’ve seen what students can do in high school when they’re designing solutions for their school, for the environment around them, and how well they’re actually able to speak through it. As kids, as young adults, we’re full of ideas that we want to show to the world, but sometimes we don’t have the confidence to, sometimes we don’t have the presentation skills to. So its beautiful to see when the kids are creating something that they’ve built from scratch, from the computer and seeing it come to life, how much more connected they are to that project at hand and how they want to make sure that the world sees what their vision was.”

Zermeno concluded: “I've really seen how students’ communication skills increase as they're trying to communicate their idea, their design, their solution, how their presentation skills increase, how their team working skills increase because they're having to design solutions in a team. It's really amazing to see how the technology is able to touch on so many essential skills that those students need to grow for their future careers. I think we're seeing a lot of them enter higher education now onto their careers and seeing what they can do now, and it just makes me so excited for them for the future.”