User:Mrockar

About Me

Name

Matt Rockar

Major

Computer Science

Contact Me

Email: [email protected]

Blogs

Week One

Part A

Useful

Settlers of Catan Border I play Settlers of Catan every so often and my border pieces are starting to not hold the board together well during a game. This seems like a great replacement for the cardboard border.

Artistic

8D Cubic Lattice The math sculptures on Thingiverse are all amazing. It was hard to choose, but this one looked interesting to me. I think being able to print such complicated structures that would be difficult, if not impossible, to create using other methods is awesome.

Useless/Pointless

Rocky Rocket It kinda looks like an old school sci fi rocket, but not really.

Funny

Battleshots The idea that someone turned the board game into a printable drinking game is hilarious. I don’t think I would ever be able to finish a game though.

Strange

Temporary Tooth Implant This is a temporary tooth implant as the title suggests. I find it strange because I don’t think I would want to stick something I printed into my jaw.

Part B

I feel that I am a tinkerer. When I was younger, I would take things apart and try to put them back together. Around thirteen or so, I became interested in computers and robotics. That was when I started building robots from kits and eventually put together my own computer. I really enjoy figuring out how things work and making them better or repairing them if they break down. I think my dad is also a tinkerer. He always has a project going on and loves finding new things to try to create.

The argument about the influence of corporate culture on tinkering is pretty spot on. Corporations don’t want people poking around in their proprietary designs or figuring out cheap ways to keep gadgets running instead of buying the latest, more expensive one when your old gadget breaks. I feel that tinkerers are necessary and the article is right about preserving their habitat being essential to getting the nation back on track. Tinkering is essential to innovation and since manufacturing has been moved out of the country, we need to focus on creating new products and improving the design.

The primary design principles that I took away from the interview are to use an iterative process, watch how users use your product, and keep it simple. I thought it was great to see that he and his daughter were building a 3D printer. I think he will be able to really utilize the rapid prototyping process very well. I think his principles would apply to our work and are mostly already in place. The RepRap project is an iterative design process and the users are directly involved in improving the design and fixing issues that they find.