Around the water cooler (coffee maker) here at MakerBot, we’ve been talking about Father’s Day gifts. Yes, we can make suggestions for people in our community, but what are we going to give to the dads in our lives?

Team member Dave said the one thing he knows he doesn’t need is another nose hair trimmer. It’s the kind of gift men get over and over. They end up sitting in a drawer, forming a little colony of rarely used things. We agreed Dave should make a stand for all his grooming accessories. A few minutes of modeling later we had this custom wall rack.

This rack says “I love all of the grooming tools you’ve given me so much that I want to hang them on a wall. And also please don’t give me another one.”

The trick to making a custom stand for things of different dimensions is to use a good set of calipers. This takes a lot of guess work out of the process. The pair that Dave uses runs about $15 on Amazon, and they’re great for outside, inside, or depth measurements.

Calipers should give you a read out in millimeters or inches. For modeling purposes, millimeters will work best. For this quick project, it wasn’t necessary to have exact caliper measurements of every dimension of the object.

The outside measurement of the widest part of the trimmer in the first picture was enough for Dave to get a good fit. However, eyeballing this or measuring without calipers would probably have required a couple tests. This rack was a good fit on the first try.

When members of the MakerBot Software team are running late, they don’t just send in a one-off email. Department director Far, who calls himself the Nerd Herder, established a tradition of poetry for these messages. For example, this:

A Tricolon Crescens about Traffic:
Traffic, I cant stand it,
Traffic, I hate it,
Traffic, I hope it dies in its iniquity.
- David

The team has a special affection for haiku:

incorrigible recidivist
mornings are hard for some
can haz work late
-Far

And a stream of replies:

Far is a genius
inventing poetry styles
I can haz lolku
- Joseph

seriously guys,
we are going overboard
with all these haiku.
- Ted

But we can’t stop now!
These haiku improve my day.
Keep on keeping on.
- Ben

When Far’s head was too achy for a poem, one was written on his behalf:

No haiku from Far
I will author one for him
Far will be in late
- Matthew

Prose not withstanding,
The assistance is appreciated,
With my kopfschmertz fading,
Pro Se my poem is created
- Far