Hello everyone,
It’s that time of year with cold weather, snow showers, and soon coming slippery roads. Through still three weeks away, winter seemed to arrive early with snowfall earlier this month. And with Christmas arriving soon, keep in-mind that the 3D Lab is a great place for making personalized gifts for your friends and loved ones. We have donated material provided by P. Graham Dunn and for make-it-yourself gifts, you can discover wonderful laser engraved ideas here. Bring yourselves, friends, and family to the 3D Lab to make or personalize gifts! We have lots of ideas.
Students enrolled in UA’s engineering program are having a blast with their curriculum. In the Tools for Engineering class, they learn about free hand, engineering, and CAD drawing, and engineering economics. Professor Scott Gold combines theory with practice with a variety of robot based challenges. The latest task involves building tough robots to pull an increasingly weighted sled. Given that the robots are made of lightweight plastic, this is no easy feat! The shifting weighted sled is also made from LEGO parts, an interesting contraption in itself.
Students are currently building robots to climb a short flight of concrete stairs, the toughest assignment in the class. Students are allowed creative solutions, some of which involve traversing the halls to get to the top of the stairs without using steps at all. It’s always a fun time to see what students dream-up with their robots.
In the 3D Lab, Marketing Specialist Wendy Hanzel wanted to make personalized gifts for an upcoming guidance counselors meeting. We discovered that Amazon sells inexpensive night lights that can be cut and engraved with a laser engraver. The multicolor lights come with thick cast acrylic plates that provide a white frosted image when lasered. Wendy customized high school logos with Adobe Illustrator for and learned how to use the equipment to make the night lights herself. Good job!
The LED night lights make beautiful, inexpensive gifts. You can find them on Amazon here. Better yet, if you want to learn how to make multilayered LED night lights from scratch, it’s a great way to learn 3D printing, laser cutting, and programming an Arduino. Look into the Schantz Makerspace upcoming class here. Sign-up soon as space is limited!
Wayne College student Cait has been having a blast in the 3D with all sort of creative ideas. She learned the 3D printer and laser engraver for the first time and has been a regular visitor ever since. She also helps other visitors with their projects, too!
Cait’s current project is making key tags with a special “code” that relates to a Spotify music playlist. She downloaded the code (as a PNG graphic file) into a CAD program that converts it into a 3D image. This code is then placed onto a key tag shape in the CAD software. During 3D printing, the key tag’s base is printed in one filament color, then she pauses the printer to change colors, resuming printing the Spotify code in a different color. The result is striking! She is also experimenting with laser cutting and engraving leather key tags; the second photo below is a leather version. Quite nice!
Stay tuned next month as we reveal more interesting things happening the 3D Lab!
Until then,
Tom
Florida barn will be the world’s largest 3D-printed building https://www.axios.com/2023/07/14/florida-barn-3d-printed-building-emissions
Embedded LED 3D printed Christmas treehttps://www.instructables.com/Embedded-LED-3D-Printed-Christmas-Tree
Maker Faire Wayne County 2024 is happening on Saturday, July 27, 2024 at the Wayne County Fairgrounds! Space is limited, so sign-up soon! Click here for more information.
Join us on December 16th, 2023, for an electrifying class where we’ll be building an Edge Lit LED Display. Click here for more information.
Be sure to attend Make-it Monday, a monthly open meeting every second Monday at 6:00-8:00 p.m. Visit applecreekhistoricalsociety.com to learn more and for a list of upcoming classes.
We offer a free “listserv” that allows to you ask questions to members in the makerspace. It’s great for sharing ideas, forming friendships, and helping & advising each other. To join, send an email to listserv@lists.uakron.edu with “SUBSCRIBE MAKERSPACE-GROUP” in the subject line.