There was another factor that made a home 3D printer impracticable in my opinion: what would we use it for? We wouldn't be on the International Space Station in need of a replacement widget to get us home safely. And even if we were, we lacked the skills to build a CAD model of the needed widget. So good news all around we're not astronauts with a need to save the day...because we would fail.
I argued with my husband, challenging him to come up with a single thing we could print that would actually be useful and if we could make such a part—after lots of time creating an accurate software model, followed by the slow process of building it on the 3D printer—couldn't I have just ordered it from Amazon and gotten it in by then? I thought it was a sound argument, and at the time it probably was,
Back then, if you wanted to print something you mostly had to create the model yourself. Today, there are libraries of models created by people who commonly let you have the file for free. If you have the printer, you can just download the specifications and print them. There was one YouTube video I saw where a call went out to all the people with 3D printers in their area in Alabama to print a component of needed face shields. Hundreds of people with all different makes and models of 3D printers downloaded the same specification file and printed the parts. They dropped them off and a stringent procedure of sanitization and preparation was done so the shields could be safely delivered to hospital workers in need during COVID-19. If there was ever a more important use to put a home 3D printer, this was it.
What suddenly got me interested in the possibility of a 3D printer at home was another YouTube video from someone who's content typically has nothing to do with 3D printers. He had decided to get one and became so enthusiastic about it, his channel has featured nothing but since. His first video very clearly explained some of the pros and cons but also the joy of being able to create something useful.
I was interested enough at that point to send a link of the video to my husband, but not to purchase a 3D printer myself but then another thing happened. On a fluke, I searched for models available to be printed on a 3D printer that had braille on them. Lots of things popped up. The first thing I saw was some dice better than the tactile version my daughter uses now. The second was a map of the United States done in such a way that each state was a different height and state abbreviations were done in braille on then.
My daughter, of course! We could use a 3D printer to print all kinds of things for her. We could print a model of a bumblebee and let her feel the wings and where the stinger is—and she could understand more than she ever could with words. It was at this point that I became a pest to my husband, saying I wanted to get one and asking him all about his thoughts on the matter.
And at this point, we're considering getting one. The price point starts as low as a few hundred dollars. The software is much more developed for hobbyist users such as we would be. But that doesn't make the decision a straightforward one. The number of available printers is huge. There are considerations like what materials you're going to print using which will necessitate a heated tray or hooded enclosure. What slicing software will you be using? (Slicing software is what you use to prepare the model to be printed by your specific printer and is a complex step before actually sending the model to the printer that has a bit of a learning curve.) How big a "thing" do you want to print? The size of the bed limits how much you can print at once and if you need to divide up the model into parts.
There are lots more questions to be asked and things to consider, but as of today, 3D printing has gone from costly and useless in mind to affordable and useful. I don't know if we'll get one, but it's definitely fun to look at the advances in technology and the ways in which people have used it.
The Big Boy Update: Blake was over today and my son wanted to play Minecraft with him. I came downstairs later to what was definitely not Fortnite. My son was giggling and saying, "press X to exit!" Blake was piloting a jet on the screen, straight into the sky. When he pressed X, he jumped out of the jet and started freefalling down towards the ground—as a cow. My son had loaded Just Cause 3 and put in the cow mod or something. Blake's cow was definitely female because of the udders underneath her. Her hair was flapping in the wind. Apparently, there is a competition to see how far you can fall and the points you can make. Blake beat my son's high score.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter had a rough middle of the day. She and Blake started playing a new version of Monopoly that has an Alexa-like thing that manages the game for you. This game had different rules and she got very angry when Blake was able to trade his property for her Boardwalk (she loves Park Place and Boardwalk). Things got very bad for a while and Blake went downstairs to play with my son because my daughter tried to get violent with him. There had to be more at play here than just the taking of the property. It appeared that Blake was moving her piece for her and she took it as him thinking she wasn't capable on her own. There are loads of other factors in play such as it wasn't a standard Monopoly board and I hadn't had time to make it fully tactile. Plus, I had upset her with some requests to try on other glasses earlier and had asked if any made it easier for her to see. Perhaps that raisded some hope and when they were all just as bad, it upset her. Regardless, she was livid for a long time and her throat has got to be sore from all the screaming. In the end, she wrote Blake a letter of apology on her braillewriter, I delivered it to the basement and he wrote a letter back to her that I went upstairs to read to her, telling her he would like to talk to her if she wanted to later. I thought she was going to have none of him for the rest of the day but no, she wanted to go downstairs and happily talk to him right then. She even wanted to play Monopoly again. I warned against it but she said, "it's okay Mom, I've learned my lesson."
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