3D Printing: I love it, but I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.
My [then] 7- and 10-year-old children got me into 3D printing. Since then, I’ve learned a lot, failed often, and continue to find myself drawn to it – both as a solver-of-problems and a creative outlet.
How It Started
When my kids enrolled in a local 3D Printing summer camp, they came home each day incredibly excited. Until the last day, when rather than coming home with a 3D-printed creation, they came home with a file on a thumb drive. “No problem”, we thought, a nearby library has a 3D printer…
Little did we know how much patience is required for the actual printing, and how little could be accomplished in the two-hours permitted by the library.
Fortunately, Micro Center had a sale on the Ender 3 for $100, and our oldest had a birthday on the horizon. (This is when you’d rightfully ask “Who is this present really for?”)
Enter My Love of Modifying Hardware
From the original Xbox to my electric guitar to my Framework laptop, I love tweaking hardware – usually with the goal of making it capable of more than the creators had in mind. The Ender 3 Pro was designed for modifying. Combining it with a Raspberry Pi and the fact that it can print its own parts, this printer unlocked a whole new world of improvements for the house and the family.
A Maker’s Zen Garden
From my own designs on Tinkercad to an endlessly inspiring catalog on Thingiverse and Printables, some of my favorite projects include:
- Spice and silverware drawer inserts to make better use of kitchen space
- Interlocking torus (donuts), shown in lower left of photo, which makes for an awesome fidget toy
- Detailed model of the Moon, which attaches to a Hue bulb, to make an incredible “ready to wake” light
- Wall-mounted Yoshi, who proudly wears my son’s glasses during bedtime
Is 3D printing for everyone?
Most people visiting our house inevitably ask the question, “Do you think I could do this?” That answer is always yes, but the better question is “Do you think I would enjoy this?” That depends on a few things:
- Does this photo give you anxiety, or does it make you want to figure out how it works?
- Do you handle failure well?
- Are you good at researching your own answers, from Reddit to YouTube to blog posts and forums?
If your answers are “fix it”, “yes”, and “yes”, then you should absolutely get into 3D printing. If not, then you should probably find another hobby that causes less stress.
Agree? Disagree? Questions? I love talking about this, so get in touch!
