Hello everyone,

The summer semester is well underway here at Wayne College.  Maintenance crews are beautifying the campus, planting flowers, and preparing for new faces and welcoming previous ones this coming back this Fall semester.  It was an exciting semester with lots of students roaming the halls.  There always seems to be something happening at Wayne College; check-out our calendar here for events happening at the Wayne and Akron campuses for something that may interest you!

Anyone is welcome to visit the lab over the summer months to learn 3D printing, make stickers, buttons, and laser engraved gifts.  We show you how to use the equipment; you make the stuff!  To plan a visit, please let us know the day & time of your arrival via tjh1@uakron.edu or 330-684-8722 so that we have staff available.  People under the age of 18 need to be accompanied by a parent or guardian.  Our hours of operation are listed here.

Lauren below visits the 3D Lab lately to create promotional items for her farm and wedding planning business!  Walnut Ridge Farm is a historic family property located just outside of Orrville. Her Facebook page shares projects, activities, and ventures in cut-flower gardening specifically the establishment of her peony field.

Lauren uses Canva for her design work, exporting her creations to PDF which is compatible with our machines.  Our poster printer was helpful for making wedding seating charts and large artwork pieces, printed on durable heavyweight paper.  She then learned how to use the laser engraver to cut custom leather tags & badges to promote Walnut Ridge Farms.  Lauren purchased laser engraver friendy leather from Amazon in sheets that fit our machine.  And lately she learned how to use our solvent ink printer to make a permanent outdoor vinyl banner.  Great job!

Mentor teachers in Wayne College’s partnership with local school districts commit to a tremendous amount of work supporting and guiding our students and are a part of their final completion of the degree work with our students five days a week, full-time for all 16 weeks. For the spring semester, mentor teachers of our senior cohort student teacher candidates, Angela Kovach, PITP Coordinator/Senior Lecturer, wanted to present them with a special thank you gift.

Angela took her idea for the mentor gift to Caitlyn Harris, current Organizational Supervision major who works in the 3D Lab here on campus. She delivered beautifully and created ten standing apple plaques. The plaques were delivered to the teachers at Rittman Elementary, Norwayne Elementary and Orrville Elementary in early May!

We have a new addition to the 3D Lab, a solvent ink printer/cutter!  This machine uses “solvent ink” which is weather-proof ink that sticks to a variety of materials such as vinyl, canvas, adhesive paper, heat-press vinyl, and thin fabrics.  This machine can print onto these materials and cuts shapes as needed.

Here is a small sample of the things it can make:

  • Die-cut, full-color stickers
  • Outdoor vinyl banners
  • Full-color decals that can be heat pressed onto clothing
  • Canvas prints
  • Window clings for buildings and cars
  • And much more!

The decals print onto white vinyl, so it no longer matters about the underlying t-shirt color which was a problem with our dye-sub method.  The sky is the limit with custom t-shirts and other materials!  Feel free to stop-by the 3D Lab to give it a try!

Stay tuned next month as we reveal more interesting things happening the 3D Lab!

Until then,

Tom