3D printing has been something I’ve enjoyed for a long time. I first got into it during high school. I was super lucky and got an internship where I primarily worked on SolidWorks (a cad software) the summer of my sophomore year. The next summer I returned to the same internship and realized I forgot many of the cad skills I learned the previous year. Not wanting the same fate to happen again, I bought my first 3D printer black Friday of my senior year. 3D printing allowed me to foster my design skills, while being able to print cool stuff. I started getting hooked on making figurines, knick-knacks, and every now and then a functional print.
Once I got into USC (super exciting!) and started my internship up again, I forgot about 3D printing. Luckily that ended quickly when I joined 3D4E at USC. 3D4E is the only 3D printing club at USC and focuses on year-long team projects related to 3D printing; these projects get showcased to Viterbi students, faculty, alumni, and corporate sponsors at the end of the year. My freshman year I worked on a project to make a fully 3D printed skateboard. The board came out awesome and was definitely the most challenging cad task I ever faced. From that point on I joined the club’s eboard as treasurer and helped new members discover the glories of 3D printing that I’ve come to love and enjoy.
Being an eboard member only strengthened my passion for 3D printing. I mentored two teams, an rc car and record player team, and help them with any questions they had. Along with this I started my own project of making a 3D printed rollercoaster as a fun thing to do in my pastime. Now that I’m back home, I got to reconnect with my very first printer. It was broken from the previous summer and was laying dead on my desk for months. With extra time in my life once again, I brought this machine back to life. I got around to upgrading my printer to improve print quality and now its working 10 times better than when I first used it. With the printer up and running, I am continuing my rollercoaster project and am looking to make my own 3D printed cnc machine. Cheers to many more fun 3D printing projects to come!
