Hot off the press! We are printing our own keychains. This keychain, which was adapted from a design by bradk2012, can be found on our Thingiverse webpage. Just go to: www.thingiverse.com/uimakerlab/designs. They make great gifts and we always have a ready supply in our Lab to hand out to visitors. When we run low, we just print more!
Our Lab's 3D printers (MakerBot Replicator 2s) are amazing machines and have been used to create lots of cool and useful objects. However, their stock extruders (i.e., the component that feeds the filament through the nozzle) are quite sensitive and require a good deal of care and attention. We are addressing this challenge by upgrading to a newly designed extruder (see: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:53125). However, rather than ordering this upgrade from a store, our printers are actually printing it out. That's right, our printers are making their own parts! This self-replicating aspect was one of the founding principles of the Rep Rap Movement nearly a decade ago, which kicked off the desktop 3D printing movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RepRap_Project). Just like your smartphone uploads firmware upgrades, our 3D printers upload hardware updates!
Meet Fish Yu, an architecture student, who is passionate about creating complex structures, using his favorite software, Rhino. He recently created a beautiful structure, shown below.
According to Fish, "the UI MakerLab is such a great resource for not only business and engineering students on campus, but also just anyone who has an interest in creating 3D objects. I'm really excited that the MakerLab made it possible, and I'm looking forward to share my experience and knowledge with others from different colleges! There are so many more opportunities with these 3D printers, and hopefully we can soon start working with students with different backgrounds and come up with something exciting! "
We will be featuring other Makers as well, so come by and make something.
Learn. Make. Share.
