Joe Larson, known online as "the 3D Printing Professor," is one part artist, one part mathematician, one part teacher, and one part technologist. It all started in his youth, doing BASIC programming and low-resolution digital art on a Commodore 64. As technology progressed, so did Joe's dabbling, eventually taking him to 3D modeling while in high school and college, and he momentarily pursued a degree in computer animation. He abandoned that and instead became a math teacher, and then moved to software development for 10 years before returning to education, teaching technology in college. When Joe first heard about 3D printing, it took root in his mind, and he went back to dust off his 3D modeling skills. In 2012, he won a Makerbot Replicator 3D printer in the Tinkercad/Makerbot Chess Challenge, with a chess set that assembles into a robot. Since then, his designs on Thingiverse have been featured on Thingiverse, Gizmodo, Shapeways, Makezine, and other places. He currently produces weekly videos about design for 3D printing on his YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/mrjoesays.
