James Glover Genius Hour Blog

     This week I got my printer and got it all set up. I was too excited for this! After going through the manual and a bunch of videos on what to do first when you get a new machine, I did a test print on a file that the machine was sent with. It was so fun to watch it go from nothing to something. It turned out pretty good, to me anyway.       Next up was my project, the book holder. According to the software it said it would take at least 18 hours to print. I had to wait until I could supervise it for a bit before I left it alone for the night. I started it and I could not stop watching it as it was growing. It is so cool how my idea was finally coming to life. It turns out it takes longer than it says though, it took almost 30 hours to print! It was still worth the wait, and to me it looks great. It works great too, my book does not fold in on itself now when I'm taking notes. The total cost of it, not including the machine, was 50 cents. I can onl...

     I decided this week to create my 3D project. Like I said before I decided to use Tinkercad for my creating. I have no experience with using any CAD software so it was a bit challenging at first. I walked through some of the tutorials to learn how to use it. I had a lot of fun doing the tutorials and learned a lot, like how to place objects, resize them, colour them, group them, and even place other object inside of them to create holes.       I started my project by placing a block down and resizing it to the dimensions of the current picture frame holder I am using. Then I coloured it to my desired choice(black). I then copied and pasted that object a few times and sized those to the different pieces. I had a challenging time placing and resizing those pieces where I wanted them, but after playing with the settings of the software, I was able to set them exactly where I needed. What is cool is that you can group multiple objects together to creat...

  One night, I was trying to type some notes out from one of my books, and I had a picture frame holder holding my textbook open. Every now and then the book would fold in on itself because, realistically its not made for books, it’s for picture frames. That is what gave me the thought to try my hand at figuring out how to 3D print something like this, a book holder, from a design in my head. For a while it has intrigued me, so I why not learn about it now? I did some reading in a few articles from PCMag and 3dprinting.com and learned a lot. From what I am finding, 3D printing is a type of manufacturing called “additive manufacturing”. This is when a 3D model is created using an additive process where material is laid down in a specified pattern. This differs from “subtracting manufacturing”, where an object is created from a solid block of material by removing material from it. With additive manufacturing you can create intricate pieces using less material than traditional manuf...

     Welcome everyone! This blog was created to document my journey in answering this question:  Ho w can you create effective everyday solutions with 3D printing? I chose this topic because 3D printing is growing in popularity as a way to customize items to meet your specific needs.      I find that, around my house, there are broken toys that need replacement parts, and drawers and desks that need organizing. I wondered what else I could use a 3D printer to make. This is what I plan to figure out how to do.      My goals are to learn how to 3D print, and to create unique solutions to problems we find in our lives. I hope that my learning journey will help you learn as well.