MakerBot Resurrects The Cassette Tape With 3D-Printable MP3 Player

 

Best known to the tech world for its 3D printers, MakerBot is now dead-set to revive an 80s and 90s icon in the shape of the humble cassette tape. In a time before iPods and the iPhone, the Sony Walkman was the portable music player of choice. Now, the company behind the Replicator 3D printer is letting us relive the days of old with a 3D-printable Mixtape MP3 player.

Inspired by the cassette tapes built in a more technologically innocent time – before unmanned drones, humanoid robots and spy planes mapped out our city streets – MakerBot’s Mixtape in fact holds no magnetic tape at all. Instead, it’s a modestly-sized 2GB MP3 player featuring buttons for play/pause, fast-forward and rewind, a four-hour rechargeable battery, a 3.5mm audio jack and USB socket.

Those lucky enough to have a MakerBot 3D printer can buy the Mixtape Kit for $25 to print and put together yourself (the colour is down to you, while you can also alter the design for your own unique touch) or alternatively you can purchase a pre-assembled Mixtape direct from MakerBot for $39.

Where 32 Gb+ reign supreme on the MP3 market nowadays, the creation is unlikely to be a true replacement for your current player of choice. Still, it’s a charming, rose-tinted product that makes us nostalgic for our childhood. Good times…

Richard Birkett