Name: Mark Rehorst

Home: Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin

Makerspace: Milwaukee Makerspace

Day Job: General Dentist at the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin

How did you get started making?

I was born! My father’s friend, Dave Smaida, was a huge techno-geek before it was fashionable, and used to bring me interesting things to play with when I was a kid. He started me on photography and electronics when I was about 9 years old, but I was interested in technical things even before that. I had Lincoln Logs, Lego, Tinker Toys, and I used to build PBox electronics kits from RadioShack.

What type of maker would you classify yourself as?

Obsessive.

What’s your favorite thing you’ve made?

I go through phases every 10 years or so. It used to be audio stuff, then it was my bicycle, and most recently 3D printers. My favorite project is usually my latest, so I’d have to say it’s my latest 3D printer, Ultra MegaMax Dominator, which will be at the Maker Faire Milwaukee. It’s a CoreXY printer with a 300mm x 300mm x 700mm print envelope that I designed and built over the last year.

What’s something you’d like to make next?

I’m just finishing a 3D printable Van de Graaff generator that is a rework of a project I did about 10 years ago, before I had a 3D printer. It too, will be at the Maker Faire Milwaukee.

I got about 80% of a 3D chocolate printer project done about two years ago and stopped. Maybe I’ll revive that project. I’m actually trying to wind down my 3D printer building so I can devote more time to designing other things. I never intended for printer design and construction to become such a time and energy sink, but I have really enjoyed the challenges and I’m pretty happy with the results I’ve achieved and everything I’ve learned in the process.

Any advice for people reading this?

Join your local Makerspace! If there aren’t any, start one. Tom Waits said it well: “Never let the weeds get higher than the garden…always keep the diamond in your mind.” You’ll never get close to perfection if you don’t make perfection your goal. Be your own harshest critic. Break big projects or problems into smaller ones and solve them one by one, but keep an eye open for solutions that fix more than one problem at a time. No project is finished until you decide it is.

Your lucky numbers are 34, 17, 63, 21, 9, 18.

Mark will be showing off a number of his creations at Maker Faire Milwaukee, which is happening September 23 & 24, 2017 at the Expo Center at Wisconsin State Fair Park in West Allis, Wisconsin.

We highlight different makers from our broad community to show you the faces and stories behind the projects. Meet all the amazing people featured in Maker Spotlight. Want to nominate someone, maybe even yourself? Send a note with your responses to the bolded prompts above to [email protected].