For this challenge, I chose to learn how to use Solidworks and 3D print a pen using the tutorial. I found the tutorial fairly straightforward to follow. There were some gaps, but by toying around with the application and looking at previous steps, I was able to bridge them fairly easily. The figures were immensely helpful. My struggles began when printing. When my part file was converted into a STL file, everything looked great, but the instructions ran out. So far, I haven’t had a successful printing of the pen, likely because some part of my print or the machine was not set up correctly. Either way, my print seems to have unraveled after a certain point, and even before unraveling, appears very rough and lopsided, even though my drawing was smoothed with tangents. I have asked the staff to print my pen again over the weekend, so I hope that my print will come out nicely then! I like the think that I am fairly tech savvy and can figure things out independently, but if a relauncher in my parent’s generation who is less tech savvy were to attempt this, what types of struggles they would run into and what ways can they feel more supported. What I liked about this particular tutorial are the gaps. They forced me to actually learn how to use the application, in comparison to blindly following every detailed step without thinking about what each step actually does. A particular persona that my group was studying for Challenge 3 involved mothers who have little urgency to find a job. My concern for this persona, if she were to be given this tutorial, is where she would find motivation to grapple with and complete the tutorial. Obviously, as a student in this class where there are grades involved and a deadline for a challenge, I had high motivation to spend more time than the class allotted. However, if someone were to not be very interested and have little sense of urgency, she may not complete the tutorial quickly enough to learn much from it.
