Ultimaker Sessions

Last week, on Monday May 30th, we had a very successful first edition of our new Ultimaker Sessions. Users who keep an eye on us may be familiar with the Ulti-Evening concept we have been hosting ever since we started. The Ulti-Evening was an informal social get-together at FabLab ProtoSpace, which evolved around learning and meeting like-minded 3D print enthusiasts.

The Ulti-Evenings have been a hit among community members who live within travel distance of ProtoSpace, but we frequently receive requests from our global community members to involve them too. We tried podcasts, documenting the presentations, even had a videographer in our midst to record the entire thing. But none of those got the same feeling across as actually attending an Ulti-Evening.

Now we've found the best possible solution. We're rebranding the Ulti-Evening to Ultimaker Sessions, and with our partners we will host Sessions in your area so you can attend and be part of it. The first international Sessions will start in July - exact dates will be shared later - in the UK and in France. Our first partners to join the ranks are 3DGBIRE for the UK Ultimaker Session and Makershop for the Ultimaker Session in France. Together we’ll run pilot Ultimaker Sessions in these countries and then start adding other partners to join in on the fun as well!

If you have never attended or heard of an Ultimaker Session (or Ulti-Evening) before, let us give you an idea. An Ultimaker Session is fueled by the passion and energy of those participating on the Ultimaker online forums. They provides a regular date and location for Ultimaker community members and 3D printing enthusiasts to gather in the physical world. At the heart of this experience is an opportunity to learn more about a pertinent topic from desktop 3D printing technology and an activity to help participants master the topic themselves.

We began having these sessions when Ultimaker shipped out its first units, a time when the community needed a place to rally around the hardware, software and documentation challenges of the early days of the platform. Once every eight weeks, users gathered to share their experiences and help each other. Nowadays, thanks to the many improvements, the theme has moved into a new direction - the sessions are now about users advancing their printing experiences to the next level and helping those newly interested in the field get up to speed more quickly than was previously possible.

Once they've started Ultimaker Sessions will be held in that location once every 8 weeks. Is there a topic you would like to see in the next Ultimaker Session, or are you working on a great project yourself? Let us know! Hopefully we’ll see you at the next Session.