The Cool Parts Show
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We Answer Your Questions About The Cool Parts Show #16

In this bonus episode of The Cool Parts Show, hosts Peter Zelinski and Stephanie Hendrixson answer your questions, including: What makes something a Cool Part?

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The Cool Parts Show team has been hard at work on Season 3, plus special episodes related to 3D printing and the coronavirus pandemic. But back in March, before we were working from home and social distancing, my cohost Peter Zelinski and I sat down to answer some of the most frequently asked questions we receive: 

  1. How did you come up with the idea for the show?
  2. Why are you wearing T-shirts?
  3. Where do you film The Cool Parts Show?
  4. What makes something a cool part?
  5. How can I submit a cool part? 
 

This video was filmed March 9, 2020. 


The Cool Parts Show presented by AM

The Cool Parts Show is a video series from Additive Manufacturing Media that explores the what, how and why of unusual 3D printed parts. Watch more here.

Have a cool part to share? Email us.


Transcript

Pete Zelinski 

All right, Cool Parts Show. I'm Pete.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

I'm Stephanie.

Pete Zelinski 

We're between seasons right now. We've wrapped a season. We are working hard on the upcoming season to the show. And this is a between-seasons episode. What are we doing here?

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Okay, so Pete, we've been doing The Cool Parts Show for a while now and there are a handful of questions that we get asked pretty regularly. So I thought we could just take a few moments today and answer some of our most frequently asked questions.

Pete Zelinski 

Good idea. I'm in.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

All right. So I think you should start the answer to this one. How did we come up with the idea for The Cool Parts Show?

Pete Zelinski 

So the idea for the show it didn't come in a flash right? We start every show saying we're with AdditiveManufacturing.Media. That's our gig, additive manufacturing magazine, website, conference. In the course of that we were doing video. But it was different than this it took the form of like formal interviews with people we were writing about or, or short little social media video we would do from an event like a trade show.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, I think actually the idea for the show maybe dates back to those social media videos because we started seeing this pattern where, you know, the stranger the situation we were in or like, the weirder the thing was that we were talking about and holding, like, the more popular that video would end up being on social media.

Pete Zelinski 

But it wasn't the strangeness exactly,  what we noticed is it was the part. It was filling this need that was going unmet out there, and had to do with all these people who are kind of where we're at, so fascinated and excited by the promise of additive manufacturing and what it's going to bring. And being able to show real examples of that promise being realized, it sort of validates that interest and fuels that interest and kind of the show speaks to this tribe out there of people watching how far additive manufacturing might go.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, thank you for watching. Thank you for being part of that tribe. All right, next question.

Pete Zelinski 

Why are you wearing T-shirts? Stephanie, why do we dress this way?

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, good question. So well, you know, so getting back to those other videos that we've done in the past, where we're very formal, we're wearing suits. We really wanted The Cool Parts Show to have a different look and feel we wanted it to be kind of casual, sort of fun. And these solid colored T-shirts is kind of the uniform that we landed on.

Pete Zelinski 

Additive manufacturing is going to be transformational. We thought the look of how we dress should transform. She got me to this. I was sort of resistant at first. There's strange serendipity in where we got our T-shirts. So I, okay, Pete wear T-shirts. I don't have any presentable T-shirts. I had to go solve that problem.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, so we kind of made this decision and then both independently went and bought T-shirts, at Old Navy. So just to be clear, like Old Navy is not a sponsor of the show. They're not involved in any way. But hey, if you're watching, hit us up. Alright, next question. Where do you film The Cool Parts Show?

Pete Zelinski 

Easy. We work for Gardner Business Media. We're at Gardner Business Media's headquarters in Newtown, Ohio, in the Cincinnati area, and the building was renovated in 2019. And as part of that renovation, we got this studio, where we can sit at a table and film these episodes.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

We should also say that we do film outside the studio. So if we have a chance to actually go to the place where the part is being made. We take advantage of those opportunities. We like to film our B roll and interviews on site if we can. We even did some footage at Formnext last year because that was the best place to find some of the people and the parts that we wanted to talk about.

Pete Zelinski 

I get to ask you something. What makes something a cool part?

Stephanie Hendrixson 

That is a great question. So I think it's, a cool part for us is something that we both agree on, which doesn't always happen necessarily. It has to be 3D printed. It has to be a real part. So it has to be something that's in production already. Or it's proof of concept and it could pretty soon be.

Pete Zelinski  

Frequently people send us suggestions for parts that look cool, that look really interesting and actually the aesthetic appearance of a part is maybe the thing we're least interested in. The part might look boring in terms of its appearance and geometry, but it might say something really significant about what additive manufacturing can accomplish. And that promise of additive manufacturing is what we find really cool.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, I think that's the other key it has to let us talk about something bigger around additive, whether that's mass customization lightweighting, or something even larger, like electric vehicles, the Internet of Things, something that lets us talk about where additive's going. Okay, so last question. How do I submit a cool part idea?

Pete Zelinski 

Pretty easy, email coolparts@additivemanufacturing.media, just kind of rough out into an email the story of your 3D printed part. How it was made, the promise of additive manufacturing that it illustrates, when we get emails like this what what catches your attention.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

So I want to know like everything about the part. I want to know the process that was used. If the material is important, tell us about material. If the design software was important, tell us about that. And I'm also kind of already thinking about, you know, what is that big theme? What is the big idea that we'll get to talk about if we choose this part?

Pete Zelinski 

Include an image, attach an image of the part. You see how we do the show? We've got the parts here with us, we talk about them. So if we say yes to your idea, we'll be asking to borrow the part, anticipate that. I think that answers our five questions.

Stephanie Hendrixson 

Yeah, I think we're done with our frequently asked questions for now. And that's it for The Cool Parts Show for a little bit. We're going to be working on our next season. But in the meantime, you can see all of the episodes on YouTube or our brand new URL, thecoolpartsshow.com.

Pete Zelinski 

See you soon.

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