My sister, Virginia, recommended us to Make A Wish after Jacob's last surgery. At first we were hesitant to let him do it. We thought that Make A Wish was just for kids that were dying, and we didn't want Jacob to take the place of another child. Well, when Scott called to tell the Make A Wish people that we were not going to participate, they changed his mind. It turns out that Make A Wish is for children that have a lot of medical problems so that they have something else to focus on. It can be something that can be life changing and start children on a career path for a future that can be hard to see at times. That sounded perfect for Jacob.
Jacob thought about it for a long time and decided that he wanted a 3-D printer for his wish.
They picked up the family in a limo!
They dropped us off at Google. There were a whole bunch of people there to greet us.
When they asked us what king of 3-D printer Jacob would like, we had no idea, we went to Mark for some help. Mark gave us some suggestions that we passed along. Jacob got a Makerbot Replicator, which was highest on Mark's list. He also got a laptop that has all the software that he will need. His 3-D design program is SketchUp Pro. Does anyone have experience with it? Jacob has a whole bunch of phone numbers to call people to help him with the program, but it would be nice if he could get help from a family member.
Elizabeth loved playing with the 3-D printed stuff
Google got him a Minstorm kit that he can make robots with. It is just like the kit that he has used at school, so he is very excited to have one of his own. Google also got him a Nexus Tablet and a Pixel Chromebook. The Chromebook was so new that the people at Google hadn't seen it yet. They were really excited to watch Jacob start to play with it. :-)
Here he is with all the stuff they gave him. He has already made a stand for his tablet and is now working on making a minecraft chess set. There are a lot of pre-designed things for him to start printing right now.
He got his wish on Monday and they delivered the 3-D printer on Wednesday. That gave Scott Tuesday to make a stand for it to sit on, complete with a drawer to store all of his tools. He is awesome.
As you can see, we are very blessed. Jacob has been in a lot of pain these last couple of week and this gives him something else to focus on. Most of the Make A Wish team are volunteers. There are a lot of good people in this world. It is amazing.
8 comments :
It probably doesn't help that I've got these early pregnancy hormones, but I totally teared up at the picture of all the Google employees there to welcome you guys with the signs. It's so fantastic that they made his Wish Day so special. So glad there are others helping to watch over our Jacob and make him a little more happy through his struggles!
How wonderful Jacob and your family got to participate. Good for Virgina recomending him! Fun stuff! Way tech!
Heather, you are not the only one to get all choked-up after reading this post! Thank God for really good people that do such wonderful, unselfish work for others! And thanks so much to Virginia for coming up with the idea to begin with. Gwen, do you have a name and address for the principal person(s) that made this happen for Jacob? I would like to express my appreciation to them and all those at both Make-a-Wish and at Google that made this happen. Thanks.
Grandpa Gibbons
Roy wanted to ask if the printer came with the plastic supplies for the printing or will you have to buy that to keep printing?
You can just see them under his printer, but yes, they gave him 9 rolls of plastic. The MakerBot lady said it was enough to last him about a year.
That is so fantastic! It's probably no surprise that the choking up isn't just with the Gibbons women! Such an exciting and heartwarming experience, and we only get to see the photos of it!
I know SketchUp pretty well. I also know Rhinoceros really well (I have a copy I could send you) which is a software that you can model some really crazy cool stuff and is easier to use than 3D Studio Max. You can also get any Autodesk software for free as a student. They make 3DS Max, AutoCAD, Revit, Maya, etc (all the big name softwares). They also have a "123D" line of programs that all do something unique. 123DSketch would be a great one for you, Jacob. It's easy to learn and you can model things to print. Mudbox is another great one to learn; it's like modeling from a lump of clay, but on the computer.
Heather and I both got super choked up looking at the pictures too. It's so nice to see how there are still so many good, kind people today, all showing Christ-like love for Jacob. I've always loved the Make A Wish Foundation.
There's another free digital sculpting program you can check out Jacob, it's called sculptris, it's owned by Pixologic, the same people who make ZBrush. (ZBrush and Mudbox are the top Industry digital sculpting programs in the world)
http://pixologic.com/sculptris/ <-Just hit the "Free Download" button and try it out! (Though you will need a wacom tablet to really get good results, sculpting with a mouse is frustrating)
I'm very impressed with Mark and David's knowledge about this computer sculpting stuff. Hey, I know how to use FB and this blog!
Post a Comment