This week was solely focused on 3D printing. Starting on Monday and Tuesday, we learned IronCAD (a lot like TinkerCAD and a lot more official looking). We designed our own pieces to print in the OEDK printers and spent some time working on our own projects. My 3D printed piece came out great! It was definitely better than I expected (only adding to my notion that the OEDK is a magical place). I spent some fun time designing a room on IronCAD. We also looked at some machine drawings from 1966, to get a small taste of what people did before CAD. The drawings were beautiful, but I am soooo glad we have CAD now. On Tuesday after work we ventured over to Torchy’s, so James, Nehuwa, Eckharie, and Florence got to try queso (!!!). Nehuwa asked a poignant question trying to figure out why all the food in the US is so fatty and how anybody manages to stay in shape. Great question…
On Wednesday, we began to assemble our own 3D printers (PrintrBot Simple Metal: http://printrbot.com/project/simple-metal/). We built five in total, some of which the Malawian interns will take back home. We all worked hard to understand the printers because they are tasked with being the resident experts for them once they get back to Malawi! I worked with James to assemble a printer, which turned out pretty well. It was a fun and insightful experience to assemble the printer using the kit instructions (sometimes faulty and/or unclear), observation of Dr. Wettergreen’s functional printer (on which we printed a minion!) and working together to troubleshoot different steps with the other interns.
Starting Thursday afternoon, once our printers were assembled, we began the process of becoming familiar with the software and calibration of the devices. This took a LOT longer than I expected, but the troubleshooting process was very informative. We utilized Google quite heavily, searching through several blogs and question sites to find what settings could be manipulated for the results we desired. Finally, we got a good test square printed… (we fully or partially printed about 25 little squares before getting our final product). Then, we printed a fan shroud for the fan that cools the filament extruder on the printer. Next, we will print James’ name with some green filament.
Videos: 3D Printing a Fan Shroud My 3D Print
All in all, this was another very successful week. Just as last week, I learned a lot in a very short time. The past two weeks have also been a slightly different approach to my engineering degree. I have typically been focused a lot more in the classroom and in the research lab I work in. It has been a nice change to work more with my hands to build and understand things.
Until next week,
Whitney