Wired profiles Athey Moravetz, a game developer who quit the business to raise her kids, who built WarpZone, a massively successful Etsy store selling 3D printed, nerdy cookie-cutters:

While many homemakers have a secret cookie recipe, Moravetz has a small fleet of MakerBots. Her four MakerBot Replicators run simultaneously to keep up with the demand for her products. She says "I turn the bots on when I get up in the morning to get my daughter ready for school. So they turn on about 8 am, and they're running all day long from that point until an automated timer I've got them plugged into, turns them off at 3am. That way I can get in one last print started as I'm going to bed."
...Designing cookie cutters requires design skill — not every game character makes for a good cookie. Moravetz says "I had a lot of people requesting Dr. Who stuff — Tardis and Dalek specifically. A Dalek just doesn't read unless you include the inner detail — the silhouette is only readable to a certain degree. It needs the inner detail. But it needs a lot of small inner detail, and I try to avoid cutters going over three and a half inches in any direction. I made a four inch Dalek, but it took nearly two and a half hours to print, and when you're getting as many orders as I am right now, any cutter that takes that long to print is hardly worth it." Like Dr. Who, she outwitted the Dalek and now offers it for sale alongside the Tardis.

Maker Mom Builds Cookie-Cutter Empire With 3-D Printers [Joseph Flaherty/Wired]

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I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

TAGS: 3d printing Business Copyfight doctor who etsy family Food gift guide happy mutants makers mlp not food parenting

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IceDice - fun family game with very pointy pyramid-shaped pieces

Skittles sorting machine, version 3

http://buatbest.blogspot.com/ BUATBEST ?

wow..i love it..!
theophrastvs

wouldn’t it be easier to directly print the cookies than try to get slightly sticky dough to drop loose of those beautifully made highly complex cutters?
- chellberty
  
  Tru dat 3D printed Christmas cookies
  http://hackaday.com/2012/12/20/3d-printed-christmas-cookies/
bcsizemo

Cookie cutters? You are somehow implying I just don’t eat the dough raw…
AbleBakerCharlie

Obviously, they’re cool and it’s equally cool that this sort of high end handicraft is enabled by 3D printing. It’s also a lesson in why out might not magically displace other manufacturing- if she’s getting repeat orders, a cheap injection molding rig could churn out her daily production in minutes.
- unclegabby
  
  At a few hours a piece, selling them at 5 dollars a piece she may not even be covering the power costs much less the cost of equipment. Home 3-d printing is cool and all, but industrial 3-d printers have been around for a few decades now and they still are used for just prototype type work. A molded plastic part would be much stronger and safer, also.
Wingnut

Multimillion dollar idea:
inexpensive custom user-specified eyeglass frames.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Ender-Wiggin/100000885624281 Ender Wiggin

IP lawsuit incoming in 3….2…..
thatquis

There’s a reason cookie cutters don’t include so much detail– http://1.media.collegehumor.cvcdn.com/21/83/d616edebafb19624ee239577d2e96eeb-horse-cookie-doesnt-come-out-as-expected.jpg
- MidianGTX
  
  I feel like I’m pointing out the obvious here, but… wrong dough.
  - thatquis
    
    that’s what good cookies do! If it isn’t rising/spreading it’s goddamned shortbread
    - Ed Ligget. Tuba.
      
      Hey I like shortbread. But it could also be butter cookies.
MidianGTX

Kinda highlights the need for an FDA-approved plastic for 3D printer use. One person throws up their cookies and she’s in potential danger.
Henry Minsky

Yeah that was my first though, what plastic is being used? I have a printrbot, and have not made anything with it in ABS that would be used for food.
norma_stits

Springerle maybe, you’ll never get a sugar cookie out of that. That’s a 1960′s electric football level of disappointment,
JDs_mojo

Springerle maybe, sugar cookie dough forget it. Talkin’ 1960′s electric football level of disappointment.
- Rich Keller
  
  I was thinking springerle dough, too. And the ammonia in the hartshorn helps you from eating it raw.
  
  (Now I just need to find out what kind of resin they use for springerle mold replicas. I have some ideas of my own…)
daev

The Dr Who cutters are gone… can’t find them on the site now.

I’ll reserve my copyfight anger until a deal’s been struck or bullying is evident. I propose 10% for the copyright fee, negotiable but no higher than 30%.

Good cookie-cutter press is damn hard to find in the wild, and this could work out well for everyone as long as there’s not an asshole involved.
Cowicide

I think I’m more impressed with (what I assume is) her attainment of licenses for permission to use all those images from major corporations.

I’m pretty surprised and disappointed the article makes no mention of it whatsoever. I wonder what the terms are?
- bcsizemo
  
  You showed up a little late…
  
  While my first post is third down on the list, it was originally closer to eight. There were several commenters that made similar insights, all be it in less tactful ways.
jackbird

She also mentions she’s getting 5 hours of sleep a night. That probably isn’t sustainable.
- unclegabby
  
  And it sounds like they are running unattended at home, kind of a fire hazard.
eeyore

Yes, they are very cool. Great, take the designs, upload them to thingiverse, and let people print their own – everybody wins, and fair use is protected.

Selling them is no different than some douche reprinting Cory’s books without his knowledge or consent, and keeping all the proceeds. Copyright is broken, but this is WRONG.

Etsy seller's awesome, 3D printed nerdy cookie-cutters

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