April 2014

Hello everyone, On a cold, windy day, Dean Deckler and engineering students assembled in the softball field to launch model rockets, many of which were made from the College’s 3D printers.  Some rockets had 3D printed parts (such as nose cones, body shafts, and fins) whereas other rockets were entirely 3D printed.  Students used molded balsa wood, PVC tubing, and even machined aluminum.  It was an exciting day with one rocket exploding in mid-air thanks to an overly thin walled 3D printed rocket body.       Waiting for launch 3D printed rockets     A machined aluminum rocket Ralph’s rocket with a custom 3DRead More →

Hi everyone, It’s a busy week at the Wayne College makerspace.  Rocket launch day is Wednesday the 23rd (tomorrow), so students are busy designing and 3D printing rocket parts.  If you are free tomorrow morning at 9:30, come to the softball field to watch the launches. We find that designing a shape does not necessarily guarantee that it will 3D print!  The larger MakerBot printer works well with designs made in Creo, while the portable printer works better with SolidWorks.  This is because each printer uses a different “slicing engine” software program to process the student designs before printing. The MakerBot currently is printing fins,Read More →

Hello everyone, It’s a busy day at the Wayne makerspace.  Students are beginning to design and print model rocket parts for launch day on the 23rd.  Dusty and Andrew are tutoring engineering students how to design rocket bodies and nose cones in Creo, AutoCAD, and SolidWorks (thanks, Dan, for getting SW at Wayne!).  Students are learning not just how to design objects in CAD, but objects that will print well on a 3D printer. We are also trying something new, printing room labels that affix to brackets outside some rooms in the Student Life Building.  These placards are dual-color, an engineering challenge that involves creatingRead More →

Hello everyone, We had some accomplishments the past couple of days.  Our third 3D printer has been ordered, another MakerBot that works with PLA plastic (instead of ABS that we currently use).  This will allow us to print more complicated parts.  Thanks to the Romich Foundation for funding this purchase.  Second, Dusty printed more parts for the automatic parts rinser machine for the Chemistry Lab.  This machine will rinse parts 30 times without human intervention, based on his own original design: We also printed a different wrench design from Thingiverse.com.  This wrench prints as one piece (no assembly nor glue required).  Just take it outRead More →

Hello everyone, As we gear-up for printing model rocket designs for the engineering classes next week, the 3D printers have been busy.  Dusty is in the process of designing a “parts rinser” based on the Pythagorean Cup that we printed for Dr. Vierheller.  There are instruments in the Chemistry Lab that are difficult to clean; they must be rinsed in a solution 30 times.  To simply this procedure, this idea was created: Basically, as solution enters a container in the lower-left corner, the container slows fills.  A vertical tube on the right side of the container also fills.  When the solution reaches the top, thenRead More →

Hello everyone, We’ve been busy this week at the Wayne College Maker Space.  We printed 3D models for two local companies.  The first was a cup to hold liquid resin to see if PLA plastic can hold up to its heat.  The second were a couple of objects to see how a 3D printer could reproduce them. On the local front, students Dusty and Josh are creating new CAD designs.  In the Chemistry Lab, there are glass implements that have a difficult time being dried out due to their shape.  Dusty created an air distributor that evenly applies airflow to the glass implements: What wasRead More →