Hello everyone,
The summer semester is well underway here at Wayne College. The first summer session is about finished with students working hard to prepare for finals. 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! Of particular note, on August 4th is the annual TubaSummer concert at Akron campus!
Anyone is welcome to visit the lab over the summer months to get out of the heat, 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.
Later last month, representatives from A Whole Community visited the 3D Lab to make custom t-shirts using our solvent ink printer. AWC has a mission to create opportunities and an environment that will foster wholeness financially, relationally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally for individuals, families, and communities. They assess the needs of communities and develops sustainable projects that will meet multiple needs all within one project.
The 3D Lab’s solvent ink printer prints full-color decals onto heat transfer vinyl, then cuts a custom outline around them. After printing they peeled away unneeded vinyl around the decals then placed them onto sticky “Magic Mask” material which allows placement onto the shirts while retaining the logo’s arrangement. A quick 40-second press at 400 degrees fused the decal onto the t-shirts! The benefit of this method over dye-sublimation is that the latter requires light or white t-shirts while the full-color vinyl decals work with any color t-shirt. It was a bit of work peeling the vinyl for a dozen shirts, but worth it!
Mechanical engineering students here are Wayne College recently completed the Dynamics class, learning about kinematics and kinetics of particles and rigid bodies, principles of work, energy, momentum, and impulse. A practical application of this involved building and launching custom model rockets. Wind tunnel studies, center of pressure & gravity analysis, and other studies were performed before the rockets took flight. This semester, most all of the rockets were designed and printed in the 3D Lab! We were impressed with the results.
Instructor Kirsten Horst wanted to learn the various machines in the 3D Lab to help with teaching future education classes here at Wayne College. This brought us to the solvent ink printer!
Her friend’s children made colorful crayon drawings which we scanned into the computer. Since the drawings were made inside a circle, we used PhotoShop to make the white background outside the circles transparent. We then loaded into FlexiDESIGNER, a vector-art program that came with the printer. Flexi has a feature to draw lines around the circles which the printer will cut. Some drawings were of people, so Flexi drew custom outlines around them.
The result was spectacular! The printer inked the images onto vinyl glossy adhesive material, then cut a fine outline each one, making each drawing a durable die-cut sticker! It was a bit of work, but well worth it in the end. Good job, Kristen!
Stay tuned next month as we reveal more interesting things happening the 3D Lab!
Until then,
Tom
Students Rocket Science Challenge Launches (with a 3D Printed Part from Craftcloud)https://all3dp.com/4/students-rocket-science-challenge-launches-with-a-3d-printed-part-from-craftcloud
The Best 3D Pens for 2024 – Buyer’s Guidehttps://all3dp.com/1/best-3d-pen-reviews-price-3d-pens-buy-3d-printing-pen
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 to see who’s coming.
Sign-up fo the CNC Router Beginner’s Class on July 10th where you will learn how to set up and run the SainSmart 3018 Pro CNC router. Click here for more information.
Sign-up fo the CNC Router Beginner’s Class on July 10th where you will learn how to set up and run the SainSmart 3018 Pro CNC router. Click here for more information.
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.