I think it’s safe to say that our Build – a – Printer event was a success. This was the once in a semester project that I was responsible for running – well in part, anyway. Anjali and I were in charge of the logistical side of the event. Before spring break, we met to discuss the kit components, and to break the assembly into groups based on what we thought would make sense; of course as with everything, there was one major caveat and hindsight really is twenty-twenty: We had not seen the kit prior to our planning meeting.

This meant on giant issue was to occur on event day, and we hadn’t seen it lurking. We split up all of the teams based on old Wiki instructions that we had found, not realizing that these were outdated and did not match any of the part numbers in the kit… Go team! We must have spent the first hour scrambling around, trying to figure out why things weren’t matching up. Luckily, we had an expert from Ultimaker there that was able to point us in the direction of the new guide; things went smoother after that.

Another part of my responsibilities included staining the wood paneling and components. Accompanied by Grace, one of my Industrial Design friends, we broke down all of the wood components and painstakingly applied two coats of an oak colored stain. Aside from the aesthetics of the stain, I wasn’t sure what the purpose was. Diving further into manuals and forums created by makers who assembled previous kits, the stain helps protect the wood from the high heat of the extruders – it totally makes sense now! We didn’t do half bad on the job, and I really enjoyed it.

Overall, I think this experience was an important one. To me, it brought the maker revolution back to the grassroots and into the hands of the people who are most important. It’s a beautiful thing that Ultimaker is producing kits like these. I feel that it makes a complete circle for us: We started learning about 3D printers in order to make things, and now we are using that making knowledge to build a printer!