Week 9 Reflection

During this past week, we had the unique opportunity to partake in the 3D Printing Expo. Going in, I was both excited and nervous. The thought of building something in the BIF atrium where everyone could see us was quite nerve-racking. However, it seemed really cool simultaneously. For the event, there were 3Different (see what I did there?) sections: assembling a 3D printer, upgrading an Ultimaker, and scanning. Check them out below!

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I thought it would be really cool to assemble a 3D printer, so that’s what I chose to do! Before our group began assembling the 3D printer, the Ultimaker representative told us, “It’s kind of like assembling something from Ikea.” This statement couldn’t be further from the truth. Our group had great difficulty assembling the printer in the beginning. A lot of the problems stemmed from the fact that the instructions were outdated. Also, there comes a point where there are simply too many people working on something that requires only a few individuals. I recognized this and used it as an opportunity to explore the other sections.

All in all, I learned quite a bit from the 3D Printing Expo. It taught me to be cooperative, diligent, and optimistic. Although I already knew of the importance of teamwork, it was reemphasized through this activity. Also, through assembling the Ultimaker, I learned a lot more about the functionality of the 3D printer. Lastly, going forward, it would be awesome to assemble more 3D printers and learn how to upgrade them as well.

2 thoughts on “Week 9 Reflection

  1. Totally agree with you on the difficulty part! I have assembled electric circuit and things like that before, but this 3D printer is the most difficult and complicated one I have ever encountered. I guess if I know better about its logistics, I will probably do better.

  2. When I first helped with building the printer I also thought “this is nothing like building something from Ikea” too. But when he had mentioned it would take multiple hours for a group to build, I knew it would be more complicated than assembling a Lack. We also presumably didn’t have the right instructions for the model we were working with, but people still tried to work through the basics. Just because we don’t have every single required step doesn’t mean it wasn’t impossible to build!

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