Life off the road - making 3D printing child’s play. By Leonora Ward

facts. For example, instead of “I’m rubbish” think “I’m not very good yet but I know how to improve and get better”. The fact maybe good but the phrase gives you direction and choices to move forward and improve • Positive thinking is associated with the psychology of achievement leading to an optimistic state of mind bringing inner satisfaction, peace and personalised success • Positive thinking helps you to visualise what you want to happen and empowers you to develop a growth mindset that empowers rather than limits your potential • Positive thinking must be accompanied with action – you can learn to be optimistic and develop by doing what needs to be done, allowing you to move to where you want to be in the future • Embrace your imperfections as perfectionism is destructive. Be willing to make mistakes and learn how to move on • When being attacked by negativity, take a few deep breaths, put it into perspective, narrow it down and place it into a tiny box. INSIGHT l ‘Most of our regular customers, especially across the South, will know me as the ‘Eurodontic lady’ and I can usually be found carrying a Biostar® or Ministar® either on the road or chatting to dental laboratories and practices about pressure forming machines and all our fabulous products!

You can imagine my frustration as recent events have prevented me from doing what I do best. Like so many of us, the lockdown has meant that I’ve had to rethink how I do my job, for the time being at least.

I’m still in touch with my lovely customers, via Zoom and on the phone, but I’ve still found myself with some downtime.

One of Eurodontic’s key products for 2020 is the Ultimaker S3, an amazing, compact desktop 3D printer. I decided to bring one home to trial. What better use of my downtime than learning all the ins and outs of something new?

My son was so excited when the printer arrived. Eager to start printing something By minimising the negativity, you can gain confidence in knowing that you can tackle and overcome it • Speak to yourself positively, visualise yourself reaching your goals and enjoying the rewards, associate yourself with optimistic, happy people, read or listen to positive articles or podcasts, commit to lifelong personal improvement, take good care of your physical health, get good nutrition and sleep, and expect to be successful with confidence and you will be rewarded with a fulfilling life. (anything!), we unboxed it together and set it up within minutes, but when we pressed the button on our first test print - nothing happened! We’d failed at the first hurdle. Sheepishly we had to go back to the beginning - and actually read the instructions! Believe it or not it worked - once we followed the stepby-step setup guide and downloaded the Cura software we were ready to print. We headed over to the My Mini Factory website, which has a huge range of free files.

Lego Heads were the first thing we tried – surely it didn’t have to be dental related whilst I was practicing.

The software is really easy to use. I was able to move the image to the perfect position, so it was flat on the glass plate, and after just 30 minutes we’d made our very own Darth Vader head! All I needed to do was remove the support material, which peeled off easily. No mess, no fuss and no need for post-processing!

By then I’d definitely caught the 3D printing bug and decided to move the Ultimaker to a more permanent home in my office. Unfortunately, when we went to do a print it wouldn’t work, a printer head error. Oh no, here we are in lockdown and I’ve broken it already!

We are what we think and a positive inner voice in conjunction with a positive mental attitude creates positive results and outcomes.

We all have the opportunity to change our workplace for the better. We can choose to take control and act now or we can choose to let the situation control us. We can address the things that are not going so well and we can look to enhance our products and services to create a thriving mentally healthy workplace.

Success is not just financial but holistic and developing mental resilience can be life changing. These techniques can help you achieve this. If you decide to keep an open mind and try them out, you will quickly be able to positively change the way you think, speak and act and in turn, positively impact

LIFE OFF THE ROAD MAKING 3D PRINTING CHILD’S PLAY Leonora Ward has been Business Development Manager at dental products supplier Eurodontic for 9 years. We caught up with Leonora to see what she’s been up to during lockdown and what a typical day looks like for her.

and restore your work-life balance.

I called the Ultimaker helpline who were brilliant. During the move I had knocked the printer head out of alignment, it was an easy fix. I just had to manually realign the printer head which took a couple of minutes and I was back printing - that week I think we managed several horseshoe models, an iPhone holder, 3D puzzles and a Batman plane!

I’m not hugely confident when it comes to new technology, but I have to say the Ultimaker S3 and the Cura Software are so easy to use and they’re suitable for anyone who is new to 3D printing.

I’ve learned a lot over the past few months, I’ve taught myself to use a 3D printer, I’ve put together demonstration and training videos for customers - but I am looking forward to getting back on the road, only this time I’ll have a pressure formed machine in one hand and an Ultimaker S3 in the other. If you’d like to have a chat about any of our products, just give me a buzz and I’d be happy to give you an online demo - Darth Vader head anyone?’