3D Printed Object: Hybrid Design + FDM Print

 I would like to first begin this post by thanking Bryan and Jin for saving us in the Thingtank. 

This post begins with my failure to do possibly the simplest task of the assignment. Creating a CLOSED polysurface. I'm going to be honest when I say that I never actual thought or expected this design to ever make it to the 3D printer so I whipped it up pretty quick as a back up JUST IN CASE. Somewhere in my design there was a flaw which caused it to be completely red in Netfabb. This This became an issue of the object not being joined properly... or there was just a hole in the somewhat complicated object pattern. Huge shout out to Bryan for working his magic and flipping our object inside out so that it would work inside Netfabb. This was the first of many problems. Loading our print into Slic3r and into the Pronterface both worked out very smoothly but when it came to the actual printing process it was a bit of a trainwreck to say the least.

Jin was our absolute saviour and i credit him with the success of this print.

Danielle and I were both pretty unsure about using the machine. We knew what to do, we just weren't confident with it at all so we called over Jin many times to help. In the mean time they had let us finish our print even though Jin and Ty knew it would go into their time slot. We ended up using their entire slot they booked but I mean they let us while Mark and Harrison stole our original slot time that we booked... but no need to get salty over that. Haha. 

After some adjustments, our FIRST 3D print started and all was going well until about 15 minutes in it decided to stop completely. We shut the power source off. We called Jin over. Who called over Bryan. Thats when he had to fix the machine and deemed it was a total fluke that the system crashed. 

After that set back, we reloaded the code and made the model a little smaller just to speed up the process and the print finished and all was well. As you can see there are little errors in the one side as well as the top of the model, but otherwise it printed pretty well. 

Overall, despite the hiccups in the print, I am extremely happy with how the entire printing process went and how it looks now that it was completed.