12/15/2023
Hey Yotes! Happy graduation, and we hope you all are crushing your finals.
We got the question the other day of what named our 3D printer, from .emma, and there's actually a little bit of a story behind why we named our printer Wally.
Our first major print request came from a student who is blind, and was living on campus. They were having a little bit of trouble navigating the campus on their own, and they wanted to know if we could print a tactile map of the campus to help them orientate themselves.
We had NEVER done 3D printing or 3D modeling to any real degree before, so this was a big challenge for us. But of course, our student took on the challenge. After a LOT of trial and error, we ended up making not only a tactile map of the campus for the student, but also learned how to make custom maps of any location on campus as well.
Not only was the student (who has graduated!) able to more effectively navigate on their own, but the request also led to us all of our future 3D printing endeavors, and is the reason why we can 3D print today.
To honor the student and what they did for us, we named our 3D printer after their guide dog, Wally. You can see Wally in the first picture
Thank you for taking time to read this, and if you are graduating, congratulations! You will be amazing at whatever you do. Just be sure to always add alt-text
