Metal 3D Prints and Airport Security

I think I will need to work on my short speech on metal 3D printing which I regularly give to airport security personnel. Today I had a tough time explaining what this metal 3D printed part did. Well, that’s because it does absolutely nothing. It’s a sample part I carry around with me to explain, among other things, the staircase effect of 3D printing on sloping surfaces. Steeper the surface angle lesser is the staircase effect, and vice versa.

Other travellers got interested in my futile attempts to explain this weird shaped metal object and I quickly gathered a crowd around me. That unnerved the security guy even more and he finally let me go, thankfully without confiscating my unidentified metal object.

Or maybe, the next time airport security pulls me up for this metal 3D print I’m going to call myself a metal sculptor and explain my creation as “the passage of time through perplexed dimensions of contorted space with varying emotions of silence”. Screw 3D printing. ?