Thursday Arduino, a DIY electronics platform for easy-to-use hardware and software, has teamed up with Italian 3D printing company Sharebot to create the Arduino Materia 101 3D printer. Priced under $1,000, Materia will launch at the Maker Faire Rome this week. Out of the box, Materia comes in either a kit or pre-assembled, is completely open source, and is perfect for beginners who are interested in 3D printing.

What do you get when you put micro-controllers and 3D printing together? Makers and hobbyists going at it like kids in a candy store. Powered by the Arduino Mega 2560, it is being touted as a “precision 3D printer”; completely open in hardware and documentation. Materia basically has two parts; the Arduino Mega board, and the 3D printer made by Sharebot. Materia measures 310 x 330 x 350 mm, offering a printing area of 140 x 100 x 100 mm; with the ability to extrude filament (PLA only) at 1.75 mm in diameter using what Arduino calls “Fused Filament Fabrication”. Materia itself weighs 10kg, has an LCD display menu, comes preloaded with PLA printing presets, as well as filament pressure regulation (ArsTechnica).

Materia looks like your typical medium-sized 3D printer, except with a white finish which Arduino claims “speaks of the 3D printer's ease of use”. This is a first for Arduino in offering its own innovative 3D printer. But rest assured, “Arduino board computers have been used by hobbyists to build 3D printers”-the company knows what it is doing. Arduino has not officially announced a release date, but we do know Materia will be available from the company's website. Exact prices have not been announced. However, it is estimated to cost $800 for the kit, and $1,000 for the assembled option.