Billy, most people recycle their older printers into new larger frameworks, but I suspect that you probably have a hackerspace/makerspace in your area that will have one or more 3D printers. By joining one of those, they will have workshops showing hos to use the printers and how to get the best prints from them and you can use them yourself for a basic membership fee at many locations. If you just want to 3D print small objects, you can also have them created through one of the many services (Ponoko, Shapeways, iMaterialise, etc) using some pretty exotic materials and using high-end additive manufacturing systems. Those can often generate your designs with greater detail than home systems can provide, and allow metals and ceramics as well as basic plastics. They do cost more per material than a print itself, but then there is the lack of a printer's cost and maintenance/upkeep/fiddling so there are always tradeoffs.
@Daniel, I was very skeptical about "professional quality filament" myself for a long time but have come to realize that there is a definite level of simplicity that comes with the more-expensive materials. I don't mind fighting with mily-oval filament or filament varying in width or density along its length, but for my teachers, they find systems like Stratasys and 3DS' Cubify to be easier to just get to printing and not have to worry as much about layer adhesion and print quality when they just need to print 20+ of the same object(s) for a class. I like the amazing variety of options that are available via generic resellers (in the US: Octave, SainSmart, Taulman, etc) but unless you need Nylon or Polycarbonate or something interesting, the quality of commercially produced ABS/PLA filament from the manufacturer (Makerbot, Ultimaker, Up!, Cubify, etc) can make the basic tasks simpler for users who aren't into tuning and tinkering. This comes at a higher cost, but $25/2.2kg or $40/2.2kg is fairly insignificant in comparison to the cost of your time in reprints and clogged nozzles. I have found metal fines from machining the extruder embedded in lengths of generic filament before that required some interesting efforts to clean out a .3mm nozzle that would cause many to turn away from the potential in their 3D printers. Better to let them have a good experience for an extra $15 USD per spool in many cases.
The early-stage winner of the Gada/Uplift prize has developed the SCARA-based RepRap Morgan, which he is trying to get to the $100 USD price point and is not far off already. Quentin Harley lives in an area without easy access to parts sources, so has reduced the vitamins (parts bought from stores) count and simplified the overall design with an extensible arm acting around a central axis providing both X and Y coordinate transforms, with a common variable Z-axis. The first kits have only just become available and not in the US or UK yet (have to print your own) but that's the delightful thing about open source hardware designs.
@Billy, it looks like a couple people in Kokomo,In are looking for a group to get something started (http://forums.hackaday.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=59 at HackaDay). The closest I see is in Bloomington (http://craftswap.meetup.com/cities/us/in/bloomington/) 2-3 hours from you, but it might be worth travelling there if they hold a Mini Maker Faire to make some contacts. Another group to look for would be your local HAM Radio crowd, when they get together they often discuss people in the area setting up hackerspaces/makerspaces and also the local universities are likely to have student groups doing the same type of work and they often have equipment available. You can also start collecting the parts (stepper motors from old inkjet printers, Arduinos from almost anywhere, etc) and then just build one for yourself. The layout is fairly simple and Quentin's design looks like it could be managed for a couple hundred USD if you avoid buying retail off-the-shelf alternatives. That saves time, but costs more. If you can find a teacher that's working on practical robotics classes or taking part in programs like the SeaPerch effort, they will also likely be interested in building a RepRap or Fab@Home variation for their classes. Working with a project like that could give you experience with the tech and access to the printer under development.
Yes at my school we are going to wait till the next time we get our budget and we are going to sell it I might try and buy it if you can lend me about £17000 but we are going to get 3 or 4 maker bots 3 solid oodles and 6makiboxs or we could just sell a reeL of filament to buy a maki box. But then we are going to get a fortus machine hopefully or an objet
look into plastic welding abs... its the same stuff you buy thats "professional quality" the only reason i know this is because i happen to do plastic welding not sure on the price.... but its not $300 thats for sure...
