Daryl Dominique

About me

Essentially I help take ideas from those first few thoughts all the way to a final product. Essentially working with creative people to help invent new things by way of designing and 3D printing. The company was founded by myself and two others, so it's pretty open concept in terms of what sort of work comes to us every given day.

I was born/grew up in: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

I now live in: Sudbury, Ontario, Canada

I completed my training/education at: Laurentian University

What I do at work

Over the course of any given day, I can be found meeting with various creative individuals to see whether or not I can help their invention idea come to life. When I'm not meeting with those people, I'm usually designing those very same ideas from the ground up, then using 3D printing technology to turn them into real objects. Naturally this presents a wide range of problems to solve both in terms of designing (What should it look like? How big should it be? Do I want it to be cool and complex, or simple?) and in terms of social requirements (How can I make this person feel comfortable sharing their idea? How can I encourage them to create things?). Finally once I'm in the full swing of design and development, my skillset in engineering and design is always there to help moving me forward. A sense for how the basic physics of mechanics work as well as some of that design experience from the various university classes all goes toward the creation of any given project.

My career path is

My education was at Laurentian University in Mechanical Engineering. Beyond that, the majority of my self taught skills were artistic in nature for most of my life. I was always striving for some method of tying in that artistic aspect with the engineering education and I finally found it with the founding of CMD Prototyping, which was possibly the biggest twist a career could ever take. I went from expecting to have to go looking for a standard job to quite literally inventing my own job and building success from that. It hasn't been an easy path by any means, as founding any company usually results in difficulties for several years, but now that things are starting to even out I can honestly say I wouldn't have it any other way. It's been incredibly rewarding, an amazing learning experience and the people I've met during the endeavour have been among the best I've ever met.

I am motivated by

Honestly, my primary motivation in this career is the fact that I don't usually know what I'll be designing on any given day. Every meeting, every individual is some new idea that I more than likely have not encountered before, and thus is a completely new experience for me personally. Beyond that, I just love being able to design things as my day job. Frankly being able to use the latest in technology to build new products, and using 3d printers to create objects from nothing but digital representations is an incredibly fun way to spend the day. It also gives me an outlet for both my creative, artistic side and my more scientific education.

How I affect peoples’ lives

My career is essentially using my own education and skillset to aid others in the development of their ideas. Some of these ideas will of course be minor and not life changing, but others may perhaps have a huge impact on the lives of those it affects. Going from an idea in your mind to a physical product that that individual may then turn into a company is hopefully beneficial to not only the individual, but to the local economy as well.

Outside of work I

For fun I have a range of hobbies focusing on writing, music and generally fleeing the city to the great outdoors as much as possible. Besides that I fully admit that I'm still very fond of video games when I manage to have the time. In terms of volunteering and extra curricular, I've become quite fond of trying to help bolster ideas, new scientific and artistic movements and generally just encouraging the "maker" culture in this section of the world. I've delivered a TEDx Talk at TEDxNickelCity 2014 on the subject of "Art & Science" and that's more or less been my running theme for years now.

My advice to others

Quite simply, just go for it. If you have some aspect of a dream career in your mind, you owe it to yourself to strive to that dream. Come up with a way of achieving it, and then simply do it. The world can be a strangely encouraging place to those who simply step out of their comfort zone and do something.