At the start of summer 2020, I ordered and assembled my first personal 3-D printer. The model I chose was the Creality Ender 3 Pro, a highly recommended recreational printer which tops off at about $250 a piece. To be honest, this was the most excited I have ever been to receive a package. I have long desired the capability to print my own custom components. So many of my past projects and builds would have been made much easier if I had the ability to print a piece specially designed for a very specific use-case. In the past I had to outsource all of my requests to a friend or some of my parent’s colleagues. I say requests because at the time I did not even know HOW to design the pieces I wanted, I just knew I wanted them. Now, equipped with both CAD skills which I acquired from college and a new 3-D printer, I decided to have some fun. The prints featured here may leave you scratching your head as to why I deemed it necessary to design and print such a piece rather than purchase it online. To that I say: you do know you’re asking an engineer right?
Door Hook:
When I first moved into my college apartment, I quickly realized that there were no hooks on the door or wall of our bathroom to hang my bathrobe on. There were tower-hangers attached to the wall, but those do not tend to accommodate an entire large bathrobe. Instead of giving up my luxury preference of a robe for a shaggy towel, I decided to print my own robe hook that simply sits on the top of the bathroom door.
Iteration 1 (Broke After 2 Months) 
Iteration 2 (Still Holding) 
Yay
You will notice from the images that it actually took me two iterations to come up with a sound design. The first design is a testament to my impatience and stupidity. I did not bother to consider the structural requirements of this hook and only worried about whether it would fit on the door. Thus, my heavier-than-expected robe eventually cracked the hook down the bend, forcing me to actually measure the weight of my robe and do some FEA on the hook. Voila, the second iteration is still holding strong.
Circuit Organizer:
This circuit component organizer was an idea that I came up with as I was fooling around with my Arduino Uno. I have never had a shortage of compartmentalized boxes to store my electronic components, but I also have never had a box that perfectly stores all of my components in the exact number of compartments necessary. Essentially, I printed a box and sliding lid to create this organizer with compartment dimensions and count specifically tailored for my needs. The lid simply slides along rails on the sides of the main box to close. The tolerance range of the thickness of the lid is just enough to offer frictional resistance between the lid and the railing, preventing the lid from sliding off the rails by gravity alone.
Fridge Accessory:
Another issue I ran into upon moving into my college apartment was that our fridge was dilapidated. There were shelves missing a lid, rendering them useless to put anything on as the foods would simply slide off. I decided to print a simple wall for the shelf to hold the foods in. As well, I made the shelf “openable”. There were already holes bored into the sides of the shelf which implies that the shelf was originally supposed to have a lid with similar purpose. Rather than looking for a lid with the exact dimensions on Amazon (which seems almost impossible) or just ditching the shelf in general, this print opened up some extra useful space in the fridge and allowed us to incorporate apples, pears, and Miso soup into our college diets :).
Side pieces allow for rotation 
Miscellaneous:
Finally, this set of prints was purely for kicks. One is a nameplate which I keep on my desk. The other is a saucer with a persuasive message encouraging its usage. These were insanely easy to design and are featured only because I look at them all day when I work at my desk. They’ve been bugging me to post about them so here they are, you two happy?
seanlin.dev 