User:PwNzI
From www.thingiverse.com, here are five designs I found that have stl files associated with them for printing.
1. Most useful – cubicle coat hanger http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:41424 (special mention: pool cue holder http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:41464)
2. Most artistic/beautiful – Camaro Nervoso
3. Most pointless/useless – Stormtrooper valve cap for a bicycle tire (although it is cool)
4. Most funny/weird – My Customized Ass!
5. Most scary/strange – African mask
While growing up, I was often discouraged from taking things apart since I usually had a tendency to not return them to an operational state. However, since entering college, I did not have to worry about such discipline (having a better idea of how things worked and the ability to correctly put them back together definitely helped too). As a result, I definitely consider myself to be a tinkerer. If something is broken, my first instinct is to take it apart (possibly voiding warranties along the way) and try to figure out what is wrong with it. Another part of tinkering comes from wanting to modify things, and I most certainly have that trait too. A couple of my really good friends from college fit the tinkering persona even more than I do. One of them, in fact, talked me through my first couple of things I took apart and helped me get comfortable with doing so.
Corporate culture has certainly discouraged tinkering over the past few years. Whether it was intentional or not is up for debate, but it is most certainly influencing the nation’s attitude toward tinkering. The idea that “...preserving the habitat of the tinkerer is one of the few time-proven ways we as a nation can get back on track” seems like a bit of a moot point to me. I agree that tinkers have a tendency to discover cutting-edge, revolutionary technology and that they are vital to our nation’s success, but I do not foresee a situation in which the tinkerer’s habitat will be destroyed. There will always be a natural curiosity in many people and a way to open up commercial items. Barring a national ban on tinkering (which I am not sure how that would work or how constitutional it would be) and the removal of tinkering videos on Youtube.com, I do not think we have to worry about destroying the habitat of tinkerers.
The primary design principles that I took away from the interview of David Kelley was to always keep the user in mind and keep it as simple as possible. The design process they used, involving having a diverse group of people that can build on each other and watching humans to improve products, makes perfect sense and is something that everyone should consider doing. While it may take the project longer to complete, it will do a lot more to ensure its success. I thought it was really cool that he was making a 3D printer and makes us doing it even cooler. His design principles are definitely applicable to our work, as keeping things simpler and more user-friendly would potentially drive costs down and increase popularity.
