by Francisco Guzman, Technical Support Lead, GoEngineer
This year my 3-year-old daughter impressed me with wanting to be an astronaut for Halloween.
On her own, she started learning the unique characteristics of each planet, including how many moons they have and has even corrected me when I said that Superman is from the planet Krypton: “Dad, Krypton is not a real planet, it’s a pretend planet.” I had to excuse myself for that one!
Because I want to nurture my daughter’s interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), shortly after that conversation, and while still in proud-dad mode, I gathered a box and some glue to make her a jetpack for her astronaut costume.
I went to a nearby convenience store to buy some soda pop to use the bottles as the jets. Before paying for the soda pop, I realized that I could just 3D print a jetpack since I have a fleet of Stratasys 3D printers at my disposal back at the GoEngineer office.
A couple of simple revolve features in SOLIDWORKS, a Boss Extrude, some Cuts, a Mirror, and many Filets later, and my model was quickly ready to be printed.
I wish I would have recorded her reaction when she saw the jetpack finished—priceless!
It is amazing how we now live in an age where easy-to-use technologies like SOLIDWORKS 3D CAD software and Stratasys 3D printers enable us to think of an object, and then hold it in our hands shortly after.
If you see a kid on Halloween with jetpacks running with one fist in the air making swoosh sounds, it might be my kid.
Don’t call her cute little princess, though; she may respond to you as she did with me: “I am not a princess, I am an astronaut!”
Happy Halloween!
Here’s a link to the Thingiverse files: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3184427
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