December 2015

Hello everyone, With Finals Week nearing completion, the 3D Lab is beginning to wind-down for the winter break.  It is still a popular place for student engineers finishing their LEGO robots, Flight Club meetings, and students crafting gifts for the season.  We are very thankful to P. Graham Dunn for providing material for students to use.  It gives them and community members practical skills while they make gifts for themselves and others.  More about this below. A particularly inventive student is fascinated with CNC routing.  These machines route and carve wood using a Dremel-like tool that is computer controlled.  Normally, small CNC machines cost $5,000Read More →

Hello everyone, With finals beginning next week, students are scrambling to finish projects, study for exams, and yet make time to have fun in the 3D Lab.  Many times, all five printers are running simultaneously from student assignments and personal projects.  Our original 3D printer (a Makerbot Replicator 2X provided by the Laura B. Frick Charitable Trust) needed repaired again as its left extruder could not be used.  Our service plan with the company ensures a continual stream of replacement parts that we install; a very helpful service! We are pleased to announce that the 3D Lab will have an electronics station that will incorporateRead More →

Hello everyone, Much is happening in the 3D Lab, even with winter break and the holidays soon approaching.  A particularly interesting project involves students building robots to climb steps.  While a seemingly simple task among us humans, it poses a large challenge to our student engineers! The robots were built from LEGO Mindstorms parts which involves bricks, motors, sensors, and a large CPU brick that serves as the robot’s brain. The most successful robot of the bunch This clever robot “took the high road” and descends instead of climbs Who needs steps when you can use a ramp? Another clever design The step climbing competitionRead More →