Peter Clark

When I was at University I took a bunch of courses in CAD — Computer Aided Design — mostly using Solidworks.

It was really interesting and powerful software, but never that exciting to use because the output was pretty theoretical in 2006. You could design a chair but then making it was pretty divorced from the underlying design. It wasn't like you could print that design.

That all changed in subsequent years, starting with one of the first mainstream consumer 3D Printers — the Ender — I owned one of these printers and it was so close to great but yet also so very far.

Endless hours of tweaking and trying to level the bed killed the "just print" experience.

I eventually ran out of patience and moved on. And then a few years ago I was introduced to Bambu Labs printers. These printers are exceptional and just work™ — you can open a 3D file and click print and 95% of the time it prints perfectly.

This brought me back to using CAD, so I started learning Fusion360 (Solidworks is expensive.) And it's been incredibly gratifying to design and print things. With a Bambu printer I am focussed not on the process but the outcome. Just like how when you print a form on paper, you're not stressing about if the printer will work, but on what you'll do with the form.

3D Printing with a Bambu printer is like that. I can either print an existing 3D file from their community, or design something in Fusion360 and print it. I rarely worry about if it'll print, and can just focus on the problem I am trying to solve by printing something.

I have always enjoyed building things, be it woodworking, fabrication, welding, or anything else. However all these functions are very coarse in detail. 3D Printing is incredibly precise.

For example my kids have humidifiers but for reasons I cannot explain they have incredibly bright LED lights on the top telling you when they're working. The LED light is so bright that it lights up their bedroom.

Now obviously you could just place tape over the light, but there is no clear craft to resolve this issue. It isn't like you'd make a light cover out of wood.

With 3D printing I can whip up a model in Fusion360 — it took me about 15 minutes — and then print it. Problem solved.

These simple things sound so esoteric "just use tape!" but there is actually an incredible amount of little things where it's not an easy solve but a very high reward. Another example is that my kids are always losing their water cups at bedtime. So I printed an attachment for the side of their bed to store their cup.

3D printing is becoming an equivalent of DIY. It's no different to building versus buying wooden shelves for your garage, except for household items.

I think being intentional about your living space and focussed on solutions is exceptionally rewarding!