Recently Thingiverse infused more social features into the user experience of the site with the introduction of the Dashboard, which allows for the following of things and how others interact with them. To further enhance the Dashboard, Collections was added. With Collections users can create catalogs of things from specific categories, or things for specific uses, or just of whatever they please. If you’re into botany you can create a Collection of garden tools, and if you like to take pictures of things you can create a photography Collection. When you see anything that you want to print, modify, or just organize, you can simply click Collect it!

For any thing on Thingiverse you can follow, Like it, Watch it, show that you Made One or Made a Derivative of One, and now you can Collect it. There are already Collections of mechanical toys, utilities, and even things for scanning with the Xbox Kinect [http://www.thingiverse.com/skobalczyk/collections/kinect]. You can browse others’ Collections, which is fun, but what’s more fun is making your own versions of useful and practical Collections; I made a Kitchen Collection, which has cups, measuring spoons, taco holders, and all kinds of neat culinary doodads.

Thingiverse is really keeping Things fresh, and the interface is still light and clean. I look forward to seeing these Collections grow. Group Collections would be useful, where friends could add to the same Collection. Maybe next week. For now though, there are pages and pages of them so far, so go have a browse. I really like the Chess Collection.