3D Printing Sample Kit
I started working at the on-demand manufacturing company Xometry in summer 2019. At the time, the marketing team was facing a problem. Customers were struggling with their selection of 3D printing materials and processes because they lacked an accurate sense of the physical properties of the material generated by each process. I was assigned to solve this problem by develop a new sample kit.
My idea was to create a functional desk toy. I wanted to design something customers would leave on top of their desks to play with, rather than relegate to some drawer. Inspired by the open source “Polypanel” system, I envisioned how the different tiles might form a toy structure.
I started with a set composed of panels produced with SLS, FDM and Polyjet, since we had all of those processes available in-house.
After designing a viable product, I tested the “desk toy” appeal of my polypanel set by leaving them around the office. I quickly saw that my colleagues were drawn to pick them up and play with them creating new shapes and configurations.
Once I had settled on the structure, I began to refine the tile components. Before settling on a final design, I combed through thousands of customer reviews about 3D printing processes looking for the biggest sources of confusion or dissatisfaction. I discovered that many people were surprised by the powder finish of SLS parts, the looser tolerances of FDM printing, and the brittle rigidity of our high detail SLA. I also reached out directly to customers to discuss these questions and learn how they might use my sample sets. This research reinforced my initial assumption that a toy design sample set would be an eye-catching and fun marketing tool. Customers who played with the set, as my coworkers had, could become more familiar with the characteristics and quirks of each manufacturing process before they made a major purchase.
The sample part set is currently being sold at Xometry’s website:
https://www.xometry.com/supplies/3d-printing-sample-cube
Visit this link for details about the materials and processes used for each part.
