[NetBehaviour] 3D Printers To Save Hermit Crabs.

[marc garrett]

3D Printers To Save Hermit Crabs.

Where does 3D printing and species protection intersect? Hermit crabs, 
apparently. Makerbot Industries, who make do-it-yourself 3D printers, 
launched Project Shellter last Tuesday. Project Shellter intends to 
leverage the Makerbot community's design talent and network of 5,000 3D 
printers to design and produce shells for hermit crabs who face a 
species threatening, man-made housing shortage. Hmm, sounds familiar.

Bre Pettis, a founder of Makerbot, explains on the Makerbot blog: Hermit 
crabs don’t make their own shells. They scavenge their homes. And now, 
hermit crabs are facing a housing shortage as the worldwide shell supply 
is decreasing. With a shell shortage, hermit crabs around the world are 
being forced to stick their butts into bottles, shotgun shells, and 
anything else they can find. This is not acceptable. As a community, we 
can reach out to this vulnerable species and offer our digital design 
skills and 3D printing capabilities and give hermit crabs another 
option: 3D printed shells.

One of the challenges is that no one knows yet if hermit crabs will live 
in man-made plastic shells. And if they will, what shell designs would 
make the best hermit crab homes. Makerbot is setting up a hermit crab 
habitat in their factory to test shell designs shared by the community.

http://www.shareable.net/blog/3d-printing-community-crowdsource-saving-species