Hello everyone,

The 3D Lab has been the center of all things aerial lately.  Engineering students enrolled in the Dynamics class are busy printing model rockets, R/C Flight Club members are designing planes and gliders, while others are experimenting with drones.  The R/C club recently took a field trip to the MAPS Air Museum, more on that experience later this week.

Chris recently purchased a tri-copter drone that is powerful enough to support a GoPro digital camera.  He built the aircraft from a kit, so 3D printed parts were not needed.  After calibrating its three propellers and engines to be synchronized, the drone took its first maiden flight in the gym.  The flight was a success with (thankfully) no crash landings.

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Early last year, the Romich Foundation provided funding for a filament extruder.  This is used not only for making our own low-cost filament, but we can recycle plastic as well.  3D printing is far from a perfect technology with many failed prints.  We finally received a plastic grinder (also funded by the Romich Foundation) suitable for reducing “waste” plastic into pieces small enough to go through the filament extruder.  Now we can recycle our plastic to be used once again!  More news on this development in the coming weeks.

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Last Friday, a small group of students traveled to Case Western Reserve’s thinkbox, a 15 million dollar makerspace that is open to the public.  It is a fantastic place to fabricate anything as it hosts high-end 3D printers, laser engravers, a full metal shop, wood shop, electronics facilities, and more.  We arrived early that morning, before the rush of students and community members who use the facility.  Josh and Nathan used the laser engraver to cut model airplane bodies and wings from foam board while Morgan engraved a wooden plaque for her dorm.

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Visiting thinkbox is a good way to learn how they run the facility, giving us ideas for our own makerspace at Wayne.  Thinkbox offers free tours to the public and other schools, so give them a call if you are interested.

Some of their printers offer dual extrusion where one print head prints plastic while the other prints support material of a different type.  This material dissolves in a lye bath, resulting in complex parts that are easy to clean-up after printing.  Thinkbox staff use an “oven” to dry parts after being soaked in the lye bath. 

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We also caught a glimpse of a new 3D scanner in which the user waves a “wand” around the object to be scanned, covering all angles.  The result is amazing!  While our students were at the MAPS museum last Friday, Chris took a second batch of scans with our own 3D scanner, loaned from the Orrville Boys and Girls Club.

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Last but not least, the 2015 Writer’s Workshop at Wayne College had its award ceremony a couple of weeks ago.  The committee asked the 3D Lab staff to create an award for “Writer of the Year”.  We laser engraved a wood plaque that was donated to us, then used wood stain to darken the text.  The result turned out beautifully!  We used offsite laser engravers for the task (at a makerspace in Creston), as our own engraver is not yet installed.

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Stay tuned as we report our experience at the MAPS Air Museum and other exciting developments in the 3D Lab.  We are in for an exciting summer with new equipment for students to explore.

 

3d-printing-news

3D printed isn’t limited to small objects.  Some have printed entire cars, while others have invented fully functioning snow throwers:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/moospyker/3d-printed-rc-snow-blower-2nd-generation

 

See how one person 3D printed a full-size 1972 Honda CB500 motorcycle.  It’s not a working model, but yet is impressive in its accuracy and weight (only 18kg!).

http://hackaday.com/2015/03/24/3d-printed-motorcycle-weighs-only-18kg

 

Until next week,

Tom