I went to London to fix stuff for strangers.

I am in London, England, about to offer free 3D printed repairs for strangers. With me, Matt Gray. And the reason we're walking down this random alleyway is because we're on our way to UCL Mechspace. The University College London was kind enough to let us use their space full of tools. We have some students who are going to help us. Let's go fix some things. That's very kind of you. I think if you look at my gaiter, that'll get you started, warmed up for more serious tasks. Okay. On this one, it works intermittently. This was meant to sit in there, but it's become unsoldered. And I think if you solder that back in, can you do that for us? Yeah. Oh, well done. Test my soldering skills. No, I solder a bit. If not, I've got somebody who's a welder to do it. Should I go and get? I can solder. Can you? Yeah. Yeah, do you want to do it? Yeah. All right. Got something for me to do straight away. So this one's not working at all. The battery I've tested, and it seems okay. So the next question is the switch. No, I think not. Yeah, you've got a dodgy button, I think. Yeah, you've got an intermittent button here. If I push it off to one side, it doesn't light up. If I push it off to the other side, it does light up. Okay. How easy is it to change the button now? Very. And I'm expecting it to light the light up. Woo! So that's one fixed. The other one. Let's go. Test it before you solder it. Matt, how often do you obstruct the camera with your hair? Because I do it all the time. All the time. That one's done. You're done. Thank you very much. Okie dokie. Yeah, thank you. Okay. So you know how the coolest lanyards have both the pullout thing and the belt clip, right? Mine's not cool enough. And I would love if it did have the belt clip on because I don't like wearing it around my neck the whole time. Would it be possible to upgrade the lanyard to the cooler version? Totally. All right, Matt, I think I got a serviceable solution. What do you think of this? Just a little springy alligator mouth to slide over the belt. The one thing that I would suggest is that it's currently sticking out quite a bit. I'd probably make it a bit flatter because as a larger gentleman, that would stick into my side a bit more because that's kind of pointy. So the whole profile, I guess, can be like mid-small? Okay, cool. Perfect. Helping. Yeah. Got our belt clips. And we printed three of them in case all your colleagues want them. I'm sure they will. Onto the belts. And there it goes. That should do it. Actually, I guess it'll go this way because you're right there. Yeah, the thingamajig will do your task. Yeah. Nice. There you go. Thank you so much. No problem. Oh, we're going to help to organize this repair cafe, so thank you. Oh, yeah, I did. If you don't have what it takes to work at the thought alignment center, then we'll be releasing you with immediate effect. Please collect the printout of your P40 iPhone below. So, if you please, this is a fantastic career change opportunity. All right, what do we got? So, I'm working on improving one of those cheap eBay claw machines. Claw machines? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like one of those toy ones. Like an arcade machine? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have been chosen. So, this is the base of it. Got the battery stuff here. But what I'm missing is the lid to keep the coins in from falling out the bottom. But I'm not actually sure how it's supposed to clip in. I think through. Well, yeah, there. But on the other side, I'm not sure how it's holding because there's no screw like that bit. Right. So, I assume there's some kind of clip. I'm not sure. Yeah, oh, you know what? I think on this side, it probably just claws into there. I think I can do it. Awesome. Yeah. So, that moment right there, I can see that I am not fully listening to Thomas. Thomas is the guy who brought that arcade machine part. He's a maker in his own right. He has a YouTube channel called Mellow Labs. He's a smart guy. And what he's trying to tell me is that he can't figure out how that latching mechanism works. But in my eagerness to have a successful repair, I completely bulldoze over that challenge, oversimplify it, and quickly turn this into the most complicated repair of the day. It's a little hot. All right, let's see. Moment of truth. Yeah, I just wish it wasn't popping. I assume there was like a spring-loaded, not spring, like a little plastic nib that you like press in to take it out. That's what I thought. So, what I think it used to have was like a bent spring thing here. And then when you pull it back slightly, it removes the little clasp from inside that hole. And if the hole's here, I'm trying to get it in that. So, Matt thinks he's solved it and is taking over the design. Well, it needs one of those clips where you can kind of just pull it back with your nail and something hides under there. And I can't express, either with a pen or my mouth, what I think it should be, but I think I could make it in Fusion. Hello and welcome. The print's finished. Let's see if it works. Ooh, that's warm. It didn't do it. Right, the question is, will that snap shut? We said we'd try and fix things. We didn't say we'd be quick. So, Matt, which number prototype are we on now? So, we had yours, which didn't have an attachment method. Mine, which had an attachment method that I then cut off because it didn't reach. That's two. Then I printed another one, just the little bit of it, which didn't quite work. So, that's three. So, this is number four. That's nice. I think that's hooked underneath it. And then I can pull that back. That should do it, I think. All right. It's the most complicated, over-engineered battery cover of all time. It's not even complicated. I think it's just the time it takes to re-engineer a component that has some mechanical plastic parts. Yeah, and it's the fact that it has to move that makes it hard because it needs enough thinness to flex, but it also needs to be thick enough to be strong enough to not break. And I'd like the moon on the stick while I'm at it, please. A little longer than a few minutes later. Let's see. We should hear a satisfying click sound and this should stay in. Nice! Hell yeah. So, let's see if it can resist poking from when the pound coins drop into it. Nice. Sweet. Thank you. You're very welcome. This will be part of my next project I'm working on, which is I'm going to make a sort of smart toy claw machine so I can mess with my niece and nephew when they're trying to play with it. And that will be on my channel probably way after this video, actually. What's the channel? Mellow Labs. Mellow underscore Labs. Mellow Labs, great. Hello, Matt. Oh, hey, did you just come in? We're already wearing that microphone. Nice to meet you. Yeah. So, here I have this Nintendo Switch stand and it's one of the older ones, which means it's trash. Okay. And so, it's broken easily. And actually, unfortunate for you, it's broken on both sides. So, this thing has come out and as you can see here, it is chipped. You brought in the hardest type of thing to print with paper because these small injection molded parts are very difficult. Not to say I can't do it, but they're very difficult to fix with 3D printing because injection molding is strong at small sizes, but things chip off. Yeah, I just, this might just take a bit of thought. All right, this might actually work. So, we're on a little field trip to Tesco's because with all the technology that UCL NextSpace has, they don't have superglue. So, we're seeing if we can find some here. They ran out. Oh, they ran out. Oh, let's go. Got superglue. Hello, Mark. Oh, were you wearing- Were you wearing that mic this whole time? I love that you got his name on it. I was. Small injection molded parts are really hard to fix with 3D printing. So, we actually got some brass pins that we glued it in place and it should be even stronger than the original. Wow, Mark, that looks great. Still not called Mark. What's your name? Morley. It is Morley. Wow, this is great. Thank you so much. Yeah, no problem. Look at that. You can put a switch on there and it stands and it works. You have a typewriter. I have a typewriter. Barely fits. There is a part missing. It is a slight big one and I thought you might be able to help me with it. Ooh, that's lovely. So, there's supposed to be a cover here that covers this entire area, but it didn't come with it. Oh, and I guess you need enough room for the- Exactly. In the original one, there's a space cut out. So, these can flip up, but everything else is covered. And that is a big print. It is a big print. Yeah, I was just wondering. Yeah, we might- Because I'm also a product design engineer, so I repair my own stuff as well. Oh, cool. And this is just the one thing I haven't gotten to yet. Yeah, I feel like now there's pressure because you're a designer. So, this is a challenge. I designed a cover for the typewriter cover. I don't really know what the original is supposed to look like. So, I made kind of a swoopy design that highlights this in the middle and hopefully it keeps some dust out. All right, so this is definitely an experiment. And as you are a product designer- I am. Oh my gosh. Tense, it's a tense moment. No, do you know what I did? I just realized it. Oh, this is so wrong. All right, so I sent you the files. I will, yeah. So, we'll see if at least one of them wins. That was really embarrassing. Ooh, okay. It's a tight fit. Bit of a tight fit. It's kind of cool though. And then this one will- I can't believe I did that. This man is capable though. I know you can- Yeah, I can flip it. Was it worth waiting five hours? Yeah, just talking is worth it to me. But also, I would have designed completely differently. And it's just really interesting to see how different people approach things. I think that's my favorite part, just because every single person has a different idea. Well, thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Thank you very much. At the very end of the day, we finally found the example mechanism we needed. This is what we were searching for all along and what Matt completely redesigned from scratch. Let's see how close I got. Was I, yeah, pretty much close. Like the place where I designed it for didn't have any clearance to go any further down. All right, we're about to get kicked out of here. Let's clear up and go. All right, so we got kicked out of the mech space because we went pretty much past the end of our time a lot of there. It was by about 10 minutes just as that print finished. And then we had to clear up, tidy up and then move everything out. So thank you very much to UCL for letting us use your space even though we ran over a little bit. Yeah. How did you find your first 3D printed repair experience? I thought it was good. I think we had just the right amount of people coming along for us to have something to do the whole time. Yeah. I think we could have dealt with a couple of more. The choke point there was really the 3D printer. Yeah. Even with a fast printer, just being forced to only print one thing at a time I think is the main struggle. Just having two printers to do one of these repair sessions is a game changer. Because we turned one repair away because it was textile based and we didn't have a sewing machine. Oh yeah, I never even learned what she wanted. And then there was another one that because I'm local, I'm going to do myself. Like the hard bit is getting the word out and getting people to come down because it's just a weird thing. It's not normal, is it? I think the key to a sustainable future is this becoming more regular. And there are loads of places to do this. So if you're watching this and you're interested in it, look for repair cafe in your area. Repair cafe is generally the phrase people use even if it's not in a cafe like we went today. It's always interesting exposing new people to 3D printing. Like we had a guy come in who just was interested in it. He just searched on YouTube, 3D printing London and somehow find the YouTube short that I made. And he was stoked about it. Like one of my favorite parts about these is just like having conversations with people. And like we had three guys who just hung out most of the day because they were interested in 3D printing and they wanted to be a part of it. So looking forward to doing more of these in more places around the world. There's going to be a video on my channel, Matt's Gray. It'll be linked in the normal places. Thanks for doing this, man. Oh, thank you. Yeah, it's been good fun. If you would like to see what I'm up to behind the scenes, you can gain exclusive access to behind the scenes content and my discord community by supporting this channel on Patreon. I'd like to give a special thank you to my top supporter on Patreon, my mom, Kathy Kurt. Thanks mom. I love you.