I’d like to welcome you to the world of 3D printing. If you’re already familiar with 3D printers, how they work, and what you can do with them—well, feel free to skip ahead. I won’t mind.
3D printing is exactly what it sounds like—printing something that can be picked up, held in your hands, and played with. It’s 3D, meaning it’s not flat like a piece of paper. It’s printing because the 3D object doesn’t just magically appear; it must be “printed” by a special device called a 3D printer.
All of this and much more is explained in Chapter 1, “The Big Question—What Is a 3D Printer?”—and with photos! So, if your interest is piqued and you want to learn more, feel free to skip ahead right now to Chapter 1. Again, I won’t mind.
You probably want to know a bit more about 3D printing. Maybe you’re a little nervous that it sounds a bit too technical, or too difficult. You’ll be happy to learn that there are kids doing this 3D printing thing. Young kids. How young? My oldest boy is six, and he’s learning much of what you’ll learn in this book and he’s having a blast. I’ve even heard of much younger kids designing and printing out fun little objects with a 3D printer.
What kinds of objects can 3D printer owners print? I’ve seen a range of objects from the simple to the advanced. Buttons, game tokens, and money clips are easy to design and print and are great examples of small, simple objects that can be made in plastic. But on the advanced side, I’ve seen a 2’ tall Eiffel Tower, a life-size human skull, a set of working gears that were inserted into a robot to make it go faster, and even a camera shell that holds film and takes real pictures. (If you just can’t wait to see what people are printing with 3D printers, point your web browser to www.thingiverse.com and spend a few minutes browsing around this library of free object files that users can download and print on their 3D printers.)
There’s really no need to be intimidated by 3D printing. Yes, this is a technology book, but I promise that I’ve written it for a nontechnical audience.
As you get a few more chapters deeper into the book, you’ll discover that I’ve pulled back the complicated and strange workings of this thing called 3D printing. I even picked a special 3D printer to use with this book. It’s called The Simple. How cool is that? It’s a small 3D printer that you can build from an inexpensive kit. But you don’t have to buy it or any other 3D printer right now. Read the book to see what’s involved; read my notes on building a 3D printer from a kit and testing it, and see how I created my own 3D bobbles for printing. When you’re done with the book, I hope you’ll find that the 3D printing hobby isn’t scary or intimidating. As a matter of fact, I hope you’ll be looking at 3D printers, comparing them and trying to figure out which model will work best for your needs.
So turn the page, start learning a bit more about what 3D printing is, how it is done, and what hardware and software is involved. If you decide that you want to give 3D printing a try, I can make you one more promise—you are going to have so much fun.
See you in Chapter 1!