On my second day at the Museum, I ran into some difficulties. My Arduino project that I had been working on required an LCD screen; a part that the museum did not have. I decided to put that task on hold, in favor of a project that would be able to be completed even if I didn’t have all the parts. The lab I’m working in has a 3D printer, and I was offered the usage of it, provided that I could create my own original designs, formatted and properly uploaded to the printer. I took the challenge, and spent the majority of the day using a program called Sculptris to mold, shape, and paint a ball of digital clay, that then I could export and upload to the 3D printing and modeling software, where it could be sent to the printer. One specific great story from my second day cam in my interactions with some of the kids that visit the lab. One young boy, maybe around 3rd or 4th grade, looked over my shoulder on my computor as I was designing one particularly hideous alien head. He watched silently, so I decided to engage him, as I was at an artistic crossroads. “You like aliens?” I asked. “Yea” he replied. “What do you think of this one” I asked with baited breath. “Cool. Needs more eyes” he responded. I made the edits right then and there, and showed it to him again. “Good enough?” I eagerly questioned. “Ehh. Sure” He finally responded.
After many hours, and many failed designs, I finally created something worth printing; a replica of the head of Zoidberg, a character from the popular show “Futurama.” I painted the head digitally, and all that’s left to do is upload it to the rendering software. I learned a lot about digital creation today, and I think that the skills that I got will be applicable to the future.