Whatever Works

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Over the Christmas holidays, my mechanical-engineering student son bought himself an inexpensive (relatively) 3-D printer. In the months since then, he has created some rather intriguing bits of plastic. A couple of weeks ago I noticed he had made a smart-phone clamp for his phone that he could wedge into one of the dashboard air vents. Anyone who has tried to navigate using the GPS on their phone without having either a passenger to hold it or a convenient and stable place to set it in the car can probably appreciate my eagerness for him to make one for me as well. A few days later he presented me with the white clamp that you see in the photo. He hadn’t been pleased with the original mechanism for mounting the clamp in an air vent and told me he would finish it when he had a solution. Yesterday I needed to use the GPS to pick up a family member at an unfamiliar address and I decided to take matters into my own hands. I found a binder clip that would be strong enough to hold the weight of the phone and the clamp and then went off in search of something to attach the clamp to the clip. It is difficult to see in the photo but the solution to my problem was a large safety pin. It’s not a pretty solution. The phone ends up hanging at a bit of an angle. But, it DID solve my problem This afternoon my mechanical-engineering student son is using my car. I’m really curious about what he’ll have to say about my solution.