What Is This Thing?

Truthfully, this is a pair of 3D printed tweezers (I call them pin poppers). However, they were designed for a specific purpose, though first I think a short story is in order.

The Story

One night, I decided to organize my Odyssey of the Mind pin collection. Since pin trading is somewhat of a big deal with Odyssey of the mind, I have a lot of pins. Naturally, that meant I had to deal with a lot of the little rubber pin backs securing my pins. Normally, removing these involves pinching them with your fingers and pulling up, which works great until you realize you have to pinch and pull over a hundred times. Needless to say, my fingers hurt by the end of that night. “If only there was a way to make this easier,” I thought to myself. I then remembered that I was a maker and didn’t have to wait for someone to make it easier for me; I could do it myself.

My mind immediately jumped to keyboards. Specifically, keycap removers. In principle, keycap removers solve a similar problem to mine: gripping and removing something. With the design of a keycap puller in mind, I twisted a few paper clips together to make possibly the world’s most flimsy prototype ever (I regrettably do not have a picture of it). While the prototype was questionable, the results were not. I was on to something.

Having recently learned Fusion 360, I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to test out my new skills. With the clock ticking past midnight, I got to work and made another prototype:

3D printing was my manufacturing method of choice for this project, so I printed out this design and found that it was almost as flimsy as the paper clips. It bent too much and was too unweildy to be used effectively. At this point, I realized ergonomics and the physical properties of plastic would have a major influence in my design. Around this time, I also began giving serious thought to making large quantities of my tool to give out; manufacturing time and cost became an important factor as well. From there, the prototyping cycle continued. I tweaked the thickness and stiffness of the tool, shortened it to make it easier to hold, and added a few other creature comforts until I was happy.

From Design to Practice

As I said before, my goal was to make a bunch of these, and make a bunch I did. By this time, Odyssey of the Mind world finals were fast approaching (I had only a few days to finish this project), and I was set on sharing my creation. I ran my school’s 3D printer for 20 hours churning out pin poppers. I managed to use a little over a kilogram of filament in the process, yielding over 100 pin poppers. I’m rather proud of how little material they need; I don’t think I could have reasonably done much better from a material efficiency standpoint.

Everything finished printing just before I had to load up and head off for Iowa. The timing was so tight I wound up post-processing the prints during the drive up.

The Public Response

I loved my idea, but that’s because I love all of my ideas. The true test was to see what other pin traders thought; the response was overwhelmingly positive. People would excitedly show off my little pair of tweezers to their friends, who’d usually ask for a pair for themselves (good thing I made a lot). A fellow pin trader helped distribute them for me; it was always fun to randomly see someone using my tool. I’m told by him that he gave some to people with dexterity issues, allowing them to better participate in pin trading. If true, that is probably the happiest outcome I can think of. Also, while I gave most pin poppers away for free, they turned out to be a good item to pin trade with. Some people even insisted on paying for them.

Words don’t quite capture how happy others were and how great it felt for me. It’s one of those that you had to be there to fully understand.

Round Two

Now, I’ll apologize for writing the last section as if I was concluding this writeup, but I’m not done yet. I have a strong tendency to outdo myself, so one year later (2023), I went back to iterate on the design. The specifics of the design changes aren’t important. I continued improving upon the ergonomics and utility until the design looked close to what is on this page’s cover photo. I went through a similar manufacturing process as above, though with different filament and a different printer (readers, take note, this is important). Of course, another year brought another Odyssey of the Mind world finals. Being lucky enough to attend as a coach, I decided to make another round of pin poppers (about 150 this time).

Everything I said above about feeling great about making people happy held true again. Though, two curveballs came my way.

First, the same fellow pin trader from before informed me that he had broken my new design. I initially believed it to be a fluke, so I gave him another tool, only for him to break that one too. My confidence took quite a dip at that moment. It would be quite embarrassing if a supposedly improved design was actually more vulnerable to breaking. As it turned out, that was the case. After some boots-on-ground experimentation, I discovered that twisting the tool in a certain way would cause the finger rests on the arms to break. The problem made sense; the finger rests did not contact much of the tool, so they would probably be the first to give under stress. I suspect poorly tuned print settings also made matters worse (remember how I used a different printer and filament). Needless to say, seeing my creation practically fail did not make me too happy.

Second, I discovered a red pin popper. For context, I only ever printed them in three colors: white, black, and blue. My design had been copied. Long story short, I feel that I could have handled the situation better, and I let myself become a bit too possessive over my idea. It worked out fine in the end. Plus, with time I’ve gained respect for the fact that the person who replicated my design was in middle school, did it nearly perfectly (even fixing a difficult to spot issue I had made), and only did so because I had neglected to share the files for the project.

Overall, my “round two” was far less satisfying than the first round, but the roadbumps along the way serve as great reminders for how I can continue improving.

Takeaways

For simply working on a pair of tweezers, there’s a lot that I’ve learned. From design, prototyping, manufacturing, and even learning to deal with posessive emotions, this project has pushed me farther than I ever thought it would. You may have noticed the banner of this post is the 0.4th version of my design, which is still a work in progress. I’m hoping to have a “round three” if I can make it to the 2024 Odyssey of the Mind world finals. Who knows what more I may learn if that happens. I’ll certainly be more mindful of my print settings and feelings when the time comes. Until then, thank you for reading.

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