photo of jeffrey von goghBellevue Rotary Club member Jeffrey van Gogh started tinkering with electronics at a young age. At age 8 he took apart his broken cassette recorder and reused its parts to build a motorized spinning art machine. While his study and career in Computer Science focused more on the software side, his passion for tinkering with electronics continued through adulthood.

In the age of Internet of Things (IoT), Jeffrey took an interest in Home Automation, however he tries to avoid relying on third party cloud services. To automate his house, Jeffrey uses Home Assistant and builds his own IoT devices by soldering electronics based on ESP8266 chips.
These electronics need custom enclosures to avoid short circuits (as well as aesthetics). As such Jeffrey decided to learn how to design & print CAD models using 3D printers.

In this talk, Jeffrey will give an overview of the history of 3D printing, how it has become more mainstream in recent years and how to get started with 3d printing yourself. He’ll also talk about some of the challenges the ecosystem currently faces as well as some insights into the future of 3D printing. He’ll also bring some 3d printed items so you can get a better idea of the possibilities of 3d printing.