This month my best friend turns 30 years old. To commemorate this milestone I wanted to do something special. One of the foundations of our friendship is robot chicken. (For those of you who are unfamiliar, I encourage you to take to YouTube). A particular Robert Chicken series of sketches that brought us together involved a Star Wars character known as Boba Fett. In these scenes, Boba, a character who only had three lines in the entire Star Wars film saga, is hilariously personified as a cocky, trash talking jerk, and fantastically quotable. My friend and I would recite memorable lines from these nuggets of TV comedy gold.
One day, while I was browsing the website Thingiverse, I stumbled on a 3-D print design for Star Wars characters doing the dab - a quintessential “cool person” pose of the modern era (reaching your head to your elbow as if you were sneezing while holding your other arm straight out away from your body) expressing feelings of success and swagger. One of the dabbing character options was Boba Fett. Through this, I saw a special opportunity to capture the magic in the memories of endlessly quoting our favorite Robot chicken character.
I contacted the University of Michigan Design Lab and proposed the project. They graciously took it on while giving me the opportunity to have a great educational experience at the same time. I was able to learn a broad overview about the printing software used to effectively turn a CAD design into a 3-D project. What fascinated me about the software was it’s capability to approximate the best way to orient a design on the printing service in order to prevent deformities. Another impressive feature was the software‘s ability to know where place structures to support smaller features of the design, such as the arms and head of the figurine, with considerable accuracy.
Overall, I had a great experience with the UM Design Lab and I eager to collaborate with them again soon!
