openscad – a cross between programming and cad – with AI

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I’m making a birthday present that is a 3D printed object. It’s for someone who has everything she could possibly want so I’m going with something that has meaning. I’ve made simple 3D objects in TinkerCad. I’ve made minor customizations to things on thingiverse. I don’t have the artistic skill to make what I want here. (Not saying what it is because I want to actual present to be a surprise).

I was thinking about paying one of the members of StuyPulse robotics to create a stl file for me. But I also wanted to make it. I asked ChatGPT for ideas in hopes that there was an AI plugin that could help me. There was something even better!

OpenSCAD

ChatGPT is able to create documents in the format used by openscad.org. This is an open source CAD modeler. And the best part is that you use a text based programming language to specify what you want so my hand eye coordination when it comes to art is a non-factor!

For example, this is a part of my final product. I can control all the variables (and the text) in c code. I’m a programmer; I’m good at that. (ChatGPT did not give me the heart; it did get me started with how to get text in the desired location. I am perfectly capabie of entering a Unicode heart myself)

    translate([0,0,base_thickness - text_depth])
        linear_extrude(height=text_depth)
        text(
            "♥︎︎",
            size=24,
            halign="center",
            valign="center",
            font="Liberation Sans:style=Bold"
        );

What do i think of the tool?

I love the rapid preview feature. It’s poor quality rendering (lots of random extra lines), but let me quickly try things to get what I wanted. Then you have to render it which takes forever. Luckily, the tool makes a chime when done because I had plenty of time to start doing something else and forget about it. After that, exporting to an STL was fast.

I looked at reviews online and they were mixed. The people who were unhappy with it felt it wasn’t powerful enough for their needs. It was perfect for mine.

Using AI to help me

Using AI as a pair programmer here was super helpful. Remember I hadn’t even heard of this tool until I started this project. And its not a language I feel the need to become an expert in. AI was able to get me started and suggesting things I might want to do next. It was able to teach me how to change the code for some of the changes. (Which was enough for me to make other changes without AI.) I wound up doing a large number of edit/preview cycles which is how i code – tiny increments and see where things stand. I like that I didn’t one shot the cad because I still feel like I was involved in the coding process. And I did write some code by hand which is satisfying to me. Plus this came way better than if I had tried to do it by hand in TinkerCad. I was able to customize one of the key modules to have a better shape than that AI came up with.

I did three full render/generate stl cycles to see what it looked like and edited by hand until satisfied. The final product is bigger than my personal 3D printer can handle so I sent it to VoodooMfg for printing. (This also allows me to use a material I don’t own so it can be a little stronger). I’ve used them in the past for this type of thing and am satisfied with the result. Also, they are in New York City (Brooklyn to be specific) which means even the cheapest shipping with USPS is pretty fast). Fun fact: many years ago used to be an option to pick up your print in person. It was so cool to see their factory with so many 3D prints!

The October 2025 Toastmasters Pathways Update

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When Toastmasters introduced Pathways, I created a reference set of tables to make it easy to understand what was in each level. After all, club officers needed to know about all the paths not just their own. The 2025 update changes things enough that it was time to do that again.

As a preview, below shows the projects and their requirements. My full deck is on speakerdeck and shows more details like the required project names for each path and the names of the successful club series, better speaker series, and leadership excellence series options.

There are two versions:

  1. For presentation purposes – includes some UI changes before the reference slides. (I could just barely deliver this in 7 minutes)
  2. Just the reference slides

More important skills/traits in becoming a computer programmer

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One of students on the FIRST robotics team I mentor asked “what do you think is the most important skill or trait in becoming a successful computer programmer?”. I wrote a paragraph about persistence, problem solving and attention to detail commenting I’d choose problem solving if I could only pick one. I also immediately thought this would make a good blog post. So expanding on my top three and also commenting on how these are all important even as AI does more of the coding.

Persistence

Persistence because it feels like you are an hour from being done for days if work. Often when something doesn’t work, there are many possible causes. You have to do experiments to rule causes in or out. Getting frustrated is stressful and doesn’t result in the problem getting solved. Persistence lets you keep plugging away at it. This is especially important when there is a tight timeline or a production system is down. You know you have to get it done quickly even if it feels like you have no idea how close you are.

AI impact: Not taking the first answer to a question or the first code that gets created is a form of persistence. Adding details and trying new things to get what you want still matters. Similarly, I’ve gotten AI to give me leads I might not have thought of by using a variety of prompts.

Problem Solving

Problem solving because that’s essentially what we are doing. Getting a computer to do what we want. Taking a bigger problem, identifying smaller ones, coming up with alternatives on how to solve it – all of these require problem solving ability. I’ve often said that I enjoy doing software development because we get paid to solve problems and do puzzles. While they aren’t called puzzles, once you identify the constraints and rules, getting a solution that fits in them feels a lot like a puzzle.

It doesn’t have to be programming either. I am volunteer coordinator for the NYC FIRST Robotics Competition. Making as many people in their volunteer assignments is an interesting puzzle I get to do every year. I’ve used that skill a few times at work when creating teams for team building activities – creating rules to maximize networking while keeping the teams balanced according to a variety of factors.

AI impact: As you advance in your career, problem solving becomes more important. When you start out, the problems are smaller and tasks come with clearer instructions. I think AI makes problem solving a larger portion of the job earlier in one’s career. You spend less time on syntax and more time in specifying what you want and figuring out why it doesn’t work.

Attention to Detail

Attention to detail because getting one line of code or one setting wrong makes the entire thing go klaput. Whether it is reading an APIs documentation or identifying small differences or thinking of every edge case, attention detail is a key skill. Last week, I was in a rush and trying to figure out why my unit test was working on my machine but not on the build server. I suspected a typo but was tired and didn’t see it. I was also too worn out to think of case sensitivity. (If i had, I’d have done a text compare). Instead, I asked a teammate who is the most detail oriented person on the team. I wasn’t even done explaining what was wrong when he said “does the case matter.” Yup!

AI impact: In the past people used books and reference sheets. Then search engines. Now AI. With all of these, you have to deal with situations where noticing small differences can make a huge difference in your productivity.

What does ChatGPT “think”?

After writing this, I asked ChatGPT to see how my answer as an experience professional compares. ChatGPT noted the most important skills for a beginning/early career programmer are ones to help learn, build confidence and develop good habits early. ChatGPT then identified seven.

The top three were the same as the ones I picked. After that were curiosity/willingness to learn, basic technical foundations, communication/help seeking and enjoyment/playfullness.

I agree with these. I didn’t put technology in my answer because the language you learn isn’t the important thing. Technology changes quickly. I do agree that the foundations matter because it enables you to work with any technology.

Interestingly two of the items showed up in my explanations of other items showing I clearly think they are important: help seeking (asking my teammate about the casing issue) and enjoyment/playfulness (we get paid to solve problems/puzzles)