[mcrider]

Same, I recently got into Arduino so i could build a toy idea I had for my kid (a sort of "keepy-uppy" paddle game). I've always avoided Arduino projects because I don't like to code in my spare time (its my day job) and also learning how to wire things seemed daunting -- LLMs solved both of those problems for me (Claude's wiring tutorials are awesome and the code is simple enough that it can one-shot it).

I also bought a Bambu A1 3D Printer and it is unexpectedly way more fun and useful than I thought it would be. I designed the toy in TinkerCAD and it printed out beautifully (I also have been printing out lots of other toys and yes, useful things for around the house and for other projects).

Next steps are learning Fusion 360 and figuring out PCBs -- That also seemed daunting to me but its nice to see other amateur hobbyists are seemingly picking it up with not much difficulty.

[cjonas]

I highly recommend the "learn fusion 360 in 20 days" series on YouTube. I think I did it pretty causally in half that time. Then just find excuses to design stuff. After about a year of random projects, I can pretty proficiency draw most simple assemblies. This morning my son broke the battery hatch on his favorite toy and within an hour I had a replacement printed. (ducktape would have certainly been faster but where's the fun in that ;)

One thing I would point out is if your interested in organic shapes that blender is the better tool to learn/use. Fusions surface modeling is pretty hard to work with.