It’s been a really great week, focused on 3D printing! I’ve learned a lot and had a lot of fun getting to know the students from Malawi better.

For fun last weekend, we got to go to Dr. Wettergreen’s summer barbecue together. We got to sit, talk, and eat popsicles on a rooftop overlooking Houston’s Museum District, which was a gorgeous view. It was really nice to get to know them and Dr. Wettergreen outside of the work environment! I think these pictures describe the get-together nicely:

 

We were back to work on Monday, though, getting ready to begin our week of anything and everything related to 3D printing. On Monday and Tuesday, we learned some more advanced CAD techniques like IronCAD and a little bit of Solid Works. I practiced making basic shapes and then I made this bike:

It’s a little wonky, but it’s recognizably a bike, so I’m proud of myself. I’m getting better though–whenever we’ve had downtime this week, I’ve gotten to practice some more.

After we got the basics down, we each designed a piece to 3D print. I wanted to make something that I could actually use, so I decided on a customized game pawn:

We got to print it on a big, industrial 3D printer, which takes a really long time to print. I knew that 3D printers weren’t super fast, but I was suprised that it took about an hour and a half to print this little guy (he’s less than half an inch tall). It wasn’t too bad of a wait, though, because you don’t have to watch the machine the whole time (but it’s really fun to watch). I practiced IronCAD some more while the machine printed.At the end of the day, I got to take this home:

Later on Tuesday, we took the Malawian students to Torchy’s Tacos because they had never eaten queso before. This was tragic to us, especially those of us who grew up in Texas. We ordered enough queso for everybody to stuff themselves silly and then laughed as the Malawian students asked us how we stay fit with that kind of food! Everybody enjoyed their food and the time together. I’m excited for the next outing we have together.

The next day, we were 3D printer experts tasked with building our own printers (okay, maybe we weren’t really experts). My partner, Eckharie, and I put together our printer in about a day using our instructions (this is the printer kit we used, if you want to buy your own). Here are some pictures I took along the way:

Before we could actually print, we had to calibrate the printer. We got lucky, and calibration wasn’t too much of a pain for us. We did troubleshoot for a couple hours when the printer wouldn’t print the top or bottom of the box we were printing, only to realize that we had accidentally told the printer to do exactly that. It was a good experience, though, to learn troubleshooting methods. That way, when we’re 3D printing for our projects later in the summer, we’ll know how to fix the machine/software if a problem arises.

Once our printer worked well, we got to print one last part for the printer itself and then make whatever we want! First, we made a classy octopus, complete with a top hat an a monocle:

As I’m writing this, we’re printing a set of gears that we’re both really excited about!

Overall, it was a great week and I’m excited to get started on our projects on Monday!