…Then, last summer, we switched over to the consumer space with the Mimo monitor. We wholly expected that our prior requirements for polished prototypes would relax, as we were moving from the FDA to parents as our “regulatory bodies”. However, we quickly found that parents are far more demanding. For a parent to be comfortable testing a new device it needs to be approachable, friendly and most importantly, not look like a device! In short, it needs to be polished. (It’s worth noting that, early on, Dulcie demanded that I never say the word device while talking about Mimo)
This principle of polished prototypes seemingly flew in the face of our entire rapid prototyping philosophy. When we were first developing the Mimo, we probably went through 5-10 different versions of the device every week, but ultimately, we had to be comfortable taking each version to a parent to get their input. If the design ever felt unpolished, a parent would never get past the aesthetic problems let alone talk about the actual usability or the feature set. As a result, we started a culture of refined prototyping right from the very beginning….
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! We also offer the MakerBot Digitizer in our store. If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!