More than that, Makerbot will also release MakerBot Educators Guidebook, a guide for teachers containing lesson plans and nine different 3D-printing projects. Those nine projects are "a small sampling of hundreds of lesson plans" that educators can access via Thingiverse's Education portal. Teachers apparently downloaded some 14,000 lesson plans last month alone.

If education can stop the layoffs at Makerbot, targeting the education sector -- seemingly the only place that's seeing much growth for 3D printing -- seems like it could work out pretty well for the beleaguered firm.