I’m a retired science educator and CNC/electronics hobbyist. In recent years I’ve collected a variety of CNC machines, including various types of lasers, a 3D printer, and a humongous, seriously tricked-out ShopBot CNC router. While I have in mind a zillion applications for all this stuff, if I’m honest I have to say that I’m more like the person who buys cars to mod rather than to drive. So far, I get my greatest fun from tinkering with the machines to find their limits, then press them beyond those limits and use them in unconventional ways. For actual use, I have two main applications in mind: to create tangible representations of beautiful mathematical functions (for decorative/educational purposes), and to produce components for my primary electronics interest which is the visualization of sound/music in light (what, in my 1960s youth, we called “color organs”, though I’ve moved far, far beyond those simplistic representations)—hence, my username “ReactiveLight”. I’ve always loved to make things, but am not a particularly skilled manual fabricator (though, I did build my large house all by myself). However, I’m fairly good with computers, so the world of CNC is absolute heaven for me. It’s probably just as well that I didn’t have these machines when I was a kid, because I think I would have spent the rest of my life in my parents’ basement playing with them. Now, my long-suffering wife (a rather techie artist with some interest in this stuff) has to tolerate a house crammed with stinky, smoke-generating machines in addition to electronics tools & components.