With the holidays around the corner, I was brainstorming gift ideas for my nephew, who I recently gifted an A1 Mini for his birthday. That got me thinking about a potential update to the Maker’s Supply program—a subscription box centered around non-printed parts for makers. Before anyone jumps in - I’ll be the first to admit that most subscription boxes are overrated, but here are a few thoughts on why this is interesting to me enough to post it.
This could be a monthly subscription box with a curated selection of non-printed parts like kits, bearings, magnets, screws, inserts, and other essential components that makers always need in their supply drawer at home. I’d also suggest including a “Lookbook” featuring curated models from MakerWorld that use the parts from the box, which could also spark inspiration for makers to design their own projects. If printing a booklet isn’t ideal, a QR code that links to a webpage with the curated models and design ideas would work just as well.
The benefit for creators is that well-crafted designs using Maker’s Supply components could be highlighted, giving designers another avenue for recognition. This would motivate designers to create top-notch models that could become part of these subscription box model suggestions.
The benefits for MW and Maker’s Supply are massive, as these parts will naturally drive demand for more filament and printing.
Curious to hear what other makers think—would this be something you’d want to see?
I love this idea, this sounds similar to the Bambu Lab Maker’s Essential Kit A
But I definitely think your idea sounds better, as it would likely be cheaper and more appealing to the average person. Personally, if Bambu Lab did make a subscription box, I would buy it in a heartbeat. Amazing idea!
Exactly! The Maker’s Supply kit is awesome and definitely makes for a great gift. What I’m thinking about is something more engaging—something that encourages creators to interact with the program more often, while also using some of the newer supplies in the store. If someone just gets the full Maker’s Essential Kit, they might not even know where to start with everything inside. But if it’s delivered in bite-sized chunks each month, it creates excitement and helps people build a routine of creating and looking forward to the next one.
Brilliant idea. It’s a win-win: MW/BL gets passive income and all they have to do is come up with set of parts that they need to include in this month’s box while subscribers don’t have to worry about running out of parts or wondering “what cool to print next and what to order from Maker’s Supply”.
This is a great idea. They already have the distribution. They would likely need to set up a subscription payment system that generated the orders.
Subscription boxes could even have different levels. Filament subscription (just filament of the month or a few of the mini-rolls), Maker Supply subscription (hardware kits and non-printed parts), and Combined subscription that comes with the hardware and filaments for a featured model plus a “catalog” of other models that can be made with the monthly box.
There could even be an Advanced subscription that offered electronics not available normally (like microcontrollers and displays). Or it could be where each month you get the stuff to build part of a larger project. That would probably need a lot more coordination to track that you received the correct pack depending on what month into the project you were.
Welcome to the community and conversation @Don_Newman. Thanks for supporting the idea and I like your concept that there could be different levels of subscriptions depending on the complexity of the projects that suits the age level.
For advanced subscriptions, it would be interesting to have Arduinos or other microcontrollers for maker projects.
Yes, please do! I’d love to incorporate more of this stuff into my designs, and with a smaller set of curated components, it might be easier!
Maybe they can send the boxes to designers early, designers can then design stuff for those components and if they want to they can submit them to Bambu. Bambu can then include some of those in the box. That way stuff would be especially designed for those components. To clarify, the designers would pay just like the normal subscribers, they would just receive the boxes early. Maybe 500+ prints or something to make sure only legitimate designers can get it.
Yes, I’ve seen it as well. It’s pretty cool. It’s already got 3d printing, hasn’t it? Also not sure if that’s on topic. But yeah if we had microcontrollers it would be possible to make something like that.
I love the conversation here. Extending on my original thought a little bit, MW could also award additional points to those that showcase their completed builds. This would be another way for non-designers to make MW points and showcase their builds, encouraging more people to participate in the Maker’s Supply store.
Adafruit has a lot of different microcontroller boards, displays, sensors, I/O, with development environments, libraries, and a ready to go interconnect system for plug and play communications between various boards. Lots of code and examples. Aimed at education and hobbyists.
True, but it’s not the same as a Bambu Lab subscription box. Everyone knows that Bambu Lab makes affordable products with amazing quality control, and the things they make are created specifically to benefit 3d printing enthusiasts. Plus, if Bambu Lab did make a subscription box, and it somehow wasn’t generating a lot of sales, they could just throw in some sample filament or something to make people even more likely to buy it. All I’m saying is that although other companies already have subscription boxes, I feel like people would be more likely to buy subscription boxes made by Bambu Lab.
I only posted that if people want microcontroller stuff now since the STEMMA line is modular just like the Bambu stuff. Unless Bambu has already been working on something like that, it could be while before they could offer it. They don’t offer microcontroller stuff now so I didn’t think I was stepping on anyone’s toes.
Microcontroller stuff may be too far out of their wheelhouse, though. The stuff that Adafruit and SparkFun have has lots of development time invested already, documentation, etc. Plus, if Bambu sells it, they’d need to support it. Their customer support is stretched thin as it is.
It doesn’t take away from subscription boxes to mention sources for parts Bambu doesn’t sell.
Great idea! Sort of like the boss Mark Rober puts together. Learn some engineering/STEM concepts in each one. Bambu pretty much has different maker kits setup, they would just have to turn it into a subscription. It would be cool to mix in some different skills outside of 3D printing in, like electronics, raspberry Pi, Arduinio, etc.