The last two years were rough. And as 2021 ended, and a new coronavirus surge began, the outlook wasn't exactly sunny.
In an effort stay centered and battle the blues, I've turned again to my soothing practice: making things.
Back in 2015, I tried to make something every week for a year. I only averaged something every 1.7 weeks, but it was still successful fun.
So I'm doing it again for 2022.
Might be a gadget, might be a toy, might be a map, might be bread. I'll try to learn something new every time, and will share each thing here.
But make. Every week.
A 3D-printed flexi-dog
To kick things off I literally dusted off my 3D printer, which I had set aside when we got a pandemic puppy, and tried to remember how to use it.
Seemed appropriate to print a dog, so I found this Flexi Dog on Thingiverse. I downloaded the shape's .stl file, navigated PrusaSlicer to turn the object into printable slices ...
... and then used OctoPrint to actually send the dog to the printer.
It didn't work right away; the triangle at the end of the tail — in the foreground of the next picture — kept coming off the base plate during printing, leading to tangled messes. In the end, I warmed the plate an extra 5° Celsius, and that made it stick.
Several false starts and two hours of continuous printing later, I had my first "make" of 2022.
