I love long weekends. The rest of the parts I ordered finally showed up Friday, and I was able to finish assembly of the main extruder body. Well “finish” is a bit of a stretch. I’m going to tear it down to machine some of the metal parts, and then re-assemble it – but I’m happy with the design expect to be able to start installing the electronics.
Its nice to see things finally shaped up the way I designed them in SolidWorks.
Its weird, you can make and test incredibly complicated designs in CAD, and these days 3D printers even let you hold versions of the parts as you design them, but most times it is not until I do the physical assembly of the first prototypes that I really feel a sense of accomplishment. There is feeling of transformation from virtual to the real that takes place somewhere during assembly, and it is a transformation that I have been unable to satisfactorily quantify or capture.
As an HCI researcher that elusiveness is a problem I have been chewing on, trying to figure out how to attack for a while now. We are about to see an explosion of virtual and augmented reality technologies release for public consumption – and it seems like understanding what drives that magic transformation will be critical. It is however, not the problem I am working on currently – so back to work.