This is a recorded podcast interview (March 11, 2021) featuring Tracy and Tom Hazzard with host Neary Heng about consumer 3D printing. Tracy frames 3D printing as an accessible, design-led technology that enables small-scale artisan businesses (fashion, jewelry, product prototyping) without costly tooling. She emphasizes a shortage of women product designers, the educational value of learning design (including for children), and that consumer FFF (fused filament fabrication) printers let users print plastic and other materials at home. Tracy notes a learning curve (roughly six to nine months to produce shareable designs) and that the hosts have used 3D printing for about two and a half years. Tom demos a 3D-printed fashion tie made from PLA (a plant-based, food-grade plastic) and explains it is adjustable. The hosts promote resources: wtffpodcast.com, 3dstartpoint.com, and Tracy's site hazdesign.com.
Questions this episode answers
March 11, 2021.
A play on “What The FFF,” where FFF stands for fused filament fabrication (a common 3D printing process).
About two and a half years (they’ve used 3D printing in the last 2.5 years).
About six to nine months of learning/practice.
wtffpodcast.com, 3dstartpoint.com, and her personal site hazdesign.com (spelled H A Z Z E D E S I G N in the transcript).
Chapters
Welcome.
My name is Nary Hing, and I'm here today with Tracy Hazard, and she has a very interesting business technology. And Tracy, tell us, what is it that you do?
Well, I am a product designer, which people get really excited about, especially girls, because how much stuff do we shop for? And we don't know where it comes from. And I can tell you today that there are not enough women designers, not enough women product designers. So much product is bought over in Asia or India, other countries. And almost in my 20 years of doing this, I have never once come across a woman in any of those countries designing or engineering. So we need a lot more women designers in the new economy. And one of the most exciting things for me is 3D printing, which you're kind of hearing about. It's like a hot tech, because you can buy one at home. Home. It's kind of like buying a sewing machine, but now you're buying a 3D printer. So you can do so many cool things with it. You can create fashion, you can create jewelry. You can create any kind of tech product. You can do so many things with it, and it comes right off the machine as a product. So you don't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars investing in tooling. So you can be empowered to have your own little artisan business and make plastic objects, metal objects. There's so many great materials, too. So it is just really the hot economy, and it's where all the future jobs are. And when my partner and husband says steam is the future, I believe it strongly. And when you add the A, which is for art in there, and you add the mindset of a shopper, now you have something so fabulous that's going to fly off the shelves.
Now, what exactly is a 3D printer?
Good question. A 3D printer is it looks like a machine. It just looks like a box, and it has a plate at the bottom. And it kind looks like a glue gun. That's probably the best way to describe it. So there's a big plastic, a roll of plastic, kind of like, we call it filament, but it's kind of like.
Just like string. It would be like string. And so, but it's plastic and hard, and it goes into what looks like the tip of a glue gun that is heated. And in that heated tip, it melts the plastic and it lays it down dot by dot, row by row, and it builds up a product from the bottom all the way up. So watch your product actually be grown.
Is it like a mold?
Nope. Doesn't mold at all. It actually, layer by layer, builds every product from the bottom up. So unlike a mold in which you inject plastic into it, now you can create forms you can never create before. So the design possibilities and the future of what you can do with it is completely different than the style we're used to.
And you said you have been doing.
This for 20 years, not 3D printing? No, we've been 3D printing for about the last two and a half years.
Because there's new technology.
Any at home 3D printers or do it yourself 3D printers, ones that are much more accessible. It's been around for 20 years, but it's been extremely expensive and, you know, tens of thousands of dollars prototype machines. And we have used them in our business. But this is really using it for personal use, using it to create an object and actually sell that object or create an object and use it to test market an object. Test market a product that we've been doing in the last couple of years. So we have a podcast about it.
Are you saying that if I have this machine, I can design anything you want? Let's say my clothes or my shoes.
You know, whether or not it's going to be comfortable or it's going to be the right materials, that's what the future is coming. And it's changing. So probably not today, although there are artists and designers creating great shoes and jewelry and things like that and, you know, men's neckties. And so all of that's being created and done out there. But whether or not it's comfortable or whether or not it's something you really want to buy or it's just a conversation piece, that's where the future has to change and where it's growing. The machines are getting faster, the materials are getting more suitable. So all of that's gonna change. But in the future, if you know how to design, then you can create anything you want. Otherwise you're gonna have to buy what other people design and download it. So you'll be able to download it and print it out if you want, or send it to a service bureau.
So you have a machine and then is there like an. Operate a system?
Think of it like a sewing machine. Okay. So when we learned how to sew in maybe sixth, seventh grade, a lot of people do that. Home ec. Boys and girls across America take Home EC in sixth and seventh grade. I don't know if they still operate. Yeah, they do. They still do it. Yep. My nephew just did it so recently. So they still do it. And they learn how to sew. They learn how to sew, you know, a little craft pillow maybe, something like that. They learn how to hem a pair of pants. Will you go home and buy a sewing machine and do something with it? Unless you have an interest in creating something. So if it inspires you to create, you're gonna go buy one. But today you can buy a sewing machine that has all sorts of buttons and things that can do like appliques, monograms, and you don't have to know how to do that to still add value to something as a Etsy creator, for instance. So that's what 3D printers can do today. They can do that sort of added value. Know how to create. You can really do amazing things. In the future there'll be a lot more of that sort of kid idea of being able to download a lot of great content and make, you know, and just print out beautiful things. Will you have it in your home? I don't think every home will have it. I think a lot of homes will have it and I think the smart parents will put it in their homes so that their kids learn the design process, because that's so important.
Now.
How hard is it to use this?
You know, it's not easy. It's really hard. We've been designing 20 years. My partner and husband have been doing CAD for 20 plus years. And so it's difficult to learn how to design for it. But is it difficult to use machine? No, not at all. Is it difficult to learn some of the free software out there and get kind of capable of yet, but you gotta give yourself time. It takes probably. I think it took us about six to nine months before we really produced something we were proud to put on Instagram. You know, so if it takes professional designers that long, then yeah, I mean you're gonna create some things and you're gonna have some fun doing it. There's a learning curve, but there's a learning curve you're gonna have to go through. And maybe, honestly it actually might be easier. Like I, we started our six year old daughter on 3D printing in the last three, four months. And she's had fun. She's created a few things and they're nothing like amazing, but she did it. And the most important thing I think she learned was she did it and it didn't work the first time. It came out kind of a mess. And so she learned how to successfully fail and then do it again and not be upset by it. But just that that's a part of the process. So even learning that once skill that could last a lifetime for her.
So did you actually sell these machines?
We don't sell the machines at all. We actually just talk about them. We help people learn how to jump the learning curve so that they can be the most successful possible for what they want to create. So because a lot of machines right now are dependent on what type of material you want to use, what you want to make with it, or what you want to learn. So you know, what level are you? Are you a student, are you a professional, are you a manufacturing facility and you want to convert? You know, what is it you want to do? And so we actually have a podcast, we call it WTFFs, which stands for what the FFF and FFF is 3D printing. It's fused filament fabrication. That's that glue gun thing that I was talking about. So it's not the fff, not the other of it. And so it's a play on that.
It's.
And it's. We talk five days a week about it. We have ask us free everything we do on our podcast and our website is free to help everyone learn about what 3D printing can do for your business, do for your home, do for your family, do for your job prospects and really what its future might change all of our economy to being a design led economy.
If, if people want to know more about your company, how would they contact you?
So they can go to wtffpodcast.com or they can go to 3dstartpoint.com and that is probably the most important way to find out about 3D printing. And my personal website is hazdesign H A Z-Z--E-S-I-G N.com I will also include.
The link in the below the video. So check it out. Well, thank you so much, Tracy. I learned so much about 3D printing.
Okay.
It's been an inspiring inspiration on a 3D printing. So thank you everybody and thank you for watching.
I'm Neri A. Hi, I'm Tom Hazard from WTFF3D Printing Podcast. And for all you women who have young girls or girls out there who are interested in steam, science, technology, engineering, art and math, you might consider learning about 3D printing. My tie is an example of a fashion accessory you can learn to make and wear using average 3D printing technology available today.
Let me show you from top to bottom so you can see what exactly this tie look like.
Isn't that cool? And this is what is what kind of material is it?
It's actually a plastic material called pla, which is actually a plant based plastic and it's very friendly material. It's even food grade material. But of course, being used here as a fashion accessory.
Now, conventionally, it's some kind of material. How do you tie this?
Actually, so there's a chain that goes all around my neck and it wraps around and hooks on the other side. And we make it with a very, very extra long length and you with a hook and you make it, you figure out what your length is and you just break off the remainder so it fits you.
