Hello everyone,
Our kids summer camp is off to a good start. Not only did the Orrville Area Boys & Girls Club fly radio controlled aircraft for the first time, members of the Wayne County R/C Flight Club joined us! It was an exciting time for the kids with Chris and Nathan as camp instructors. We’ll report more on this next week.
The big news in the 3D Lab is the laser engraver is now fully operational! The Maintenance Department connected the exhaust fan (to remove smoke/fumes), the air compressor feed (to reduce flare-ups while cutting), and T.S.S. connected the engraver to our network.
We are busy creating instructions and procedures for its safe use. We found a digital photo frame that is excellent for displaying important tips while operating the machine.
P. Graham Dunn in Dalton generously donated engravable materials that students can use to practice using the machine. We are very thankful for these pieces of wood, glass, and coated metals. Wooster Glass provided acrylic as well, useful as an overlay to test engraving a piece for perfect alignment. It will be excited to see how students will create works from these materials throughout the summer and during fall semester. Here is what has been created so far.
A couple of weeks ago, students from Hiland High School in Berlin visited the 3D Lab as a field trip. Earlier in the semester, they designed wooden cars powered by carbon dioxide. They created the designs using the Solidworks CAD program, then fabricated the car bodies with traditional woodworking tools.
At the Wayne College 3D Lab, they designed wheels in CAD that were printed on 3D printers. The beauty was that they taught each other the steps necessary for the CAD design, then Anthony and I showed them how to run the printers. To top it off, we taught them how to make custom car decals on the vinyl cutter, courtesy of the Orrville Area Boys & Girls Club. They had a wonderful time in the lab, especially how they could design something on-screen then see it print into a real object minutes later.
Tom explains 3D printing
Portable 3D printer in-action
Anthony demonstrates vinyl cutting
Anthony explains 3D printing software
Students teach each other CAD
A successful wheel design
One of our summer projects is perfecting our technique of recycling used plastic filament. To this end, the Romich Foundation provided a grinder that chips up failed 3D prints into particles 5mm or smaller. These particles are then fed into the filament extruder which are melted into filament again. The grinder is now permanently installed and ready to use.
The next step is extruding the exact filament thickness that is compatible with our printers. Stay tuned as we pursue this project.
3D printers aren’t limited to small things. Cars have been printed as well as entire houses! See how one person 3D printed his own surfboard:
http://hackaday.com/2015/01/26/3d-printed-surfboard
3D printers are notoriously slow (the above surfboard took 164 hours to print), but this new resin based technology may change that:
http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/25/gizmo-3d-printer
Until next week,
Tom