A New Skill Tree Unlocked

I Got Myself a 3D Printer!

I’ve had this creative itch that I have not been able to scratch properly, so I finally bought myself a 3D printer: Bambu Labs A1 Mini with AMS Lite.

I’ve been thinking about this for years. Now that I've finally taken the plunge, I feel a rare kind of excitement! I feel like I just unlocked a new skill tree for myself to explore.

I will need to learn how to use, maintain and even modify my new 3D printer. I’ll also need to learn more about printing materials, to understand which ones work best for different designs and situations. Further still, I’ll need to learn 3D modelling and slicing, and I really need to learn more about material design, and mechanical and structural engineering. For sure there might also be a few other things I’d need to look into.

Beyond all that, I will need to learn new ways of thinking about designing things. Throughout my career, my focus has been on abstract concepts: requirements and use cases, software development, user interfaces, system architecture and process models, among other things. All of these are fundamentally intangible, but through learning 3D modelling and printing, I will need to adopt new ways of conceptualising and thinking about designs; even seemingly trivial things like how parts will physically fit together, combining into larger objects.

There is so much I will need to learn before I can create something practically useful, and that in itself is exciting to me! Right now, I know very little, but can you imagine what I will know a year from now?

There are a few things I’ve wanted to create for a long time, but I don’t yet have the skills. Not yet, but I will.

Just watch me!