Thingiverse help, and alternatives

Trying to understand thingiverse and alternatives that are open to Canadians.


An automated router thingy arrived on the farm.  Apparently we can program it and make all sorts of things, so long as they fit in the box.  Later, the router can be replaced with a laser if more accuracy is needed.

To be frank, 3d thinking is not something my brain excells in, but others in the home have good brain for this.  My task is to seek out some projects we can try to make to get the hang of this new tool.  Once we get a few successes under our belt, we can make our own patterns, i guess.

Then later, we can use it for building stuff and building repair parts.  Our hands are getting too arthritic to make these with hand tools, so maybe technology can help.

While looking for something else, I stumbled on https://www.thingiverse.com/

It's very cool.  But it looks like a lot of projects are limited to residents of the USA - both free and not free files.

Are there other sites like thingiverse around that are more Canadian friendly?

Thingiverse is also multi-thing.  It's a bit difficult for us to see what is lazer, plastic printing, or router...or can some of these be done on multiple kinds of machines?   Anyone able to explain to this 20th century brain, what to look for in a file when trying to use the router?