Oh, and in other ‘finishing projects tonight’ progress, I’m printing out the seventh gear of a GearSphere from Thingiverse. This is a pretty sophisticated all-around test of the Cupcake 3D printer’s capabilities, and it allows me to showcase to my students what a device like this can do.
After all, as my friend Scott says, “Andrew, a picture is worth a thousand words. Everybody knows that. But a part is worth a thousand pictures… and a working machine is a thousand parts.”
It’s a useful engineering aphorism which is equally useful in the Design Thinking context — if you have the ability to fit parts together and make things that work… whatever “work” means in this context… you are going to be far more attended to than someone who can only write about what he or she thinks he knows. A working machine or functioning system is a thing of beauty.
We’ll see if I can get this particular machine working beautifully, though. In the meantime, the parts are elegant; enjoy this picture of the last one of them printing right now, as you read this.
[…] and CNC milling machines and 3D Printers (which I’ve had my own encounters with, thanks very much really), I can’t help but wonder if kids really understand what’s happening […]