Hello Ben and Team!
I thought this might be an interesting build. Since both tools respond to both X and Y coordinates, it seems reasonable that with some engineering you could create a a tool to do both extrusion printing and cnc routing, maybe using interchangeable head units. It would be a great instructional tool for classrooms and could help demonstrate the shared theories and key differences between the tools and processes. It would be even better as a 3- or even 4-in-1 design if you could add in a 2D Pen Plotter and Cutting head. My though here is in a teaching demonstration you would likely start out with a pen in 2D) to show how the layers work and move into the differences between the two tools, the cutting tool would be helpful for pepakura, yet another way to design in 2D and render in 3D!
I think the challenges here that are new and different from the other builds would be designing the interchangeable head units and determining if you can design a single board to do the different tasks, or how to get several boards to work together.
I always enjoy the show, we'll miss Allison, and more pinball please. I'll be greedy and suggestion something for myself. I'd love to see a simple bread board construction that allows me to power a few flippers, some pop-bumpers, and some drop down targets, so I can prototype pinball designs easily on foam core with a pc power supply. No lights, no rules, just enough to get power the common components and maybe a reset for something like the drop targets.
Thanks again
J