We have a Holmes oscillating fan, which (as always seems to be the case), we have somehow lost the main switch, making the fan difficult to operate. I knew that I could make a replacement switch with my 3D printer. After measuring carefully, I quickly made a model in Tinkercad and printed it out. I was pleased to see that my measurements were on the nose, as the replacement switch fits like a glove, making the fan usable again. I did all this on Saturday morning. Ironically, I was unaware of this contest until after I had done all of this, so that's just one of life's happy accidents.

The key take-away from this is careful measurements save a lot of headaches down the road. Not only did I measure the shaft for the switch to fit on, but I knew that the switch needed fairly thick walls for durability, so I took care to see how much room was available to give it thick walls. Tinkercad was ideal for this project as the model was mostly a collection of cylinders.