The power of 3D printing at everyone’s fingertips.
While taking classes, I became frustrated by the lack of resources immediately available to me. There was a time when I asked a professor to 3D print a project as opposed to modeling it with cardboard. He said no.
I was fortunate enough to have my own 3D printer, but I knew a lot of other students didn’t. After working in the labs for a year as a student assistant, Covid proved to be the perfect spark for the me to execute a vision that had been long simmering. There was an irrefutable trend of robust FDM printers becoming absurdly cost-accessible. Risk of damage was no longer an excuse. Sure, it may be too much liability to have students experimenting on a $90,000 Stratasys, but $750 Prusa’s were meant to be abused and repaired. I didn’t want to 3D for students, I wanted them to learn how. As the old adage goes, “teach a person to fish…”.
I set out to write a grant, which was quickly adopted by Orfalea College of Business leadership and interim dean Al Liddicoat. By the end of summer 2020, we funded $50,000 for new hardware, facilities and labor expenses.
ITP 3D Printer Grant Proposal
Design centered solution building.
The biggest problem with putting printers in the hands of students involved the question of how? A free-for-all situation would result in rapid depreciation and poor accountability, while an old-fashioned lock and key would lead to poor utilization rates and high labor costs for lab technicians constantly needed to grant access.
Using sleek Igloohome smart-locks, I designed a process flow that worked for the students and the lab technicians. Students would scan a QR code to book an appointment, and then a remote lab tech would push them a temporary Bluetooth key. Scheduling conflicts resolved. Traceability resolved. The only problem that remained, how to attach a smart lock to a 3D printer enclosure?
Back to the design drawing board. After three design iterations, all of which were fully prototyped and tested, I replicated the winning concept with the help of my coworkers across 10 individually addressable printer modules.
