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New comment by virpo in "Show HN: I turned a sketch into a 3D-print pegboard for my kid with an AI agent"

virpo — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 19:33:39 +0000

Your instinct is right - pine is just too soft for this, and I would expect the holes to splinter.

I used oak plywood, and it has held up well so far, including in our kitchen. You do get the occasional tiny splinter, but nothing serious.

The main trick for getting clean holes, especially on the back side, is to drill into a sacrificial board so the exit side stays supported.

If helpful, here's a close-up photo: <https://files.virpo.sk/pegboard.jpg>

New comment by virpo in "Show HN: I turned a sketch into a 3D-print pegboard for my kid with an AI agent"

virpo — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 11:09:29 +0000

What is really hard for me to wrap my head around is that this is just normal for our kids now. My childhood definitely looked a lot different.

New comment by virpo in "Show HN: I turned a sketch into a 3D-print pegboard for my kid with an AI agent"

virpo — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:06:28 +0000

Ha, I didn't even know BRIO had a construction set. We have the BRIO train and lots of LEGO here, but that somehow never crossed my radar. Now I kind of have to get one :)

For a bigger pegboard, I'd almost certainly go the plywood route, ideally with access to a CNC drill or a laser cutter through some community workshop. The hole precision mattered more than I expected, and getting a whole board right with a handheld drill was surprisingly tedious.

New comment by virpo in "Show HN: I turned a sketch into a 3D-print pegboard for my kid with an AI agent"

virpo — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 09:54:53 +0000

I bought a Bambu A1 Mini to replace an Ender 3, thinking it would just be for occasional printing. I wanted something smaller and better looking. The opposite happened: the process got so much easier that I now regret not getting something bigger, maybe even with AMS.

So while I can't compare the whole market, I can definitely say the jump in ease of use was huge.

Prusa printers are great too, especially if you care about supporting a company that invested heavily in open source. I found them harder to justify on price, but I also understand why people choose them for that reason.

There have also been pretty public disputes around Bambu's use of open-source work from the Prusa/Slic3r ecosystem, so that is part of the decision too.

Show HN: I turned a sketch into a 3D-print pegboard for my kid with an AI agent

virpo — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 23:20:02 +0000

We have pegboards and plywood all over our apartment, and I had an idea to make a tiny pegboard for my kid, Oli. So I naturally cut the wood, drilled in the holes, sat down at the computer to open Fusion 360 and spend an hour or two drawing the pieces by hand.

Then I looked at the rough sketch Oli and I had made together, took a photo of it, pasted it into Codex, and gave it just two dimensions: the holes are 40mm apart and the pegs are 8mm wide.

To my surprise, 5 minutes later my 3D printer was heating up and printing the first set.

I ran it a few times to tune the dimensions for ideal fit, but I am posting the final result as a repository in case anyone else wants to print one, tweak it, or have fun with it too. I am already printing another one to hang on our front door instead of a wreath, so people visiting us have something fun and intriguing to play with while they knock.

This is also going onto my list of weird uses of AI from the last few months.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47580910

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