Recently, my boyfriend was attending a bon voyage party for a mutual friend who was moving out of Boston for a new job in Pittsburgh. Each guest was asked to provide an ornament or a memento that would signify their friendship. One idea that BF came up with was gifting a Klein bottle, an odd mathematical creation. Informally, it is a one-sided surface which, if traveled upon, could be followed back to the point of origin while flipping the traveler upside down. There exists a company that actually creates a glass Klein bottle, but the owner was traveling so there wasn’t enough to purchase one.

A few days had passed when I thought about my resources at work, where we have TWO 3d printers, and there exist “blueprint” files on the internet so you can print your own (thank you, Open Source). And that is how I discovered Thingiverse. So now, I am printing my own to give to BF for Christmas.

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