This past Saturday, the NY team held the first ever Intro to Design for 3D Printing workshop, in collaboration with CASE Inc. The concept was a simple one — provide a forum where people who’ve been excited about 3D printing but have no modeling skills can get their hands dirty. Tickets for the event quickly sold out. 

 

  

On the day of, the event space at Union Square Ventures (thanks Gary!) was rearranged classroom-style and quickly filled up with enthusiastic new faces from design agencies, local architecture schools, and other startups. The workshop went through two main exercises. To begin with, we created a file from scratch of interlocked cubes. Then, after a lunch break, we reconvened to open up an existing STL of an iPhone bumper and put our personal touches on the design. 

Many thanks to Dave Fano of CASE who broke down complicated concepts into something so simple, people were 3D modeling before they even realized it. In the end, 27 people who had never (or barely ever) done 3D modeling realized that they could create real things.

The workshop marks a small but important step for Shapeways. 3D printing is a new and exciting technology, but because it is so new, we need to provide people with the tool set they need to wrap their heads around it. As we begin thinking about how to turn this into something bigger, I’d love your input. 3D printing is picking up traction as a new industry, and people within Shapeways’ community are poised to benefit from it the most. What should we be doing to help educate a new generation of maker and enthusiasts?