I had never thought that one day I would be able to print myself. This week our class had the opportunity to digitally scan ourselves from the chest and above and then change the file into STL that could then be printed. To demonstrate this, Ariel had come into the lab with all the equipment needed. The process is to put the object on a turntable if the object is small enough and then let the turntable turn on its on and let the 3-D scanner do its job. “3D Laser Scanning is a non-contact, non-destructive technology that digitally captures the shape of physical objects using a line of laser light. 3D laser scanners create “point clouds” of data from the surface of an object.”

The digital scanner captures the object very precisely; I was shocked to see the amount of accuracy with which it scans. Ariel then told us that it actually takes millions of points on the surface, in the air, and then puts them all together to make a 3-D object that makes sense. This makes end number of surfaces which are then made into one whole product. This process was incredibly remarkable and intriguing to watch.

Here’s a summary of what had happened before class:

Wednesday – Ana and I met up at the MakerLab to scan the FitBit band. After meeting and talking to one of the Gurus in the lab we found out that it would be better to print the band in one piece. There are files on Thingiverse that we can edit according to our needs and use it for our project. The file is a downloadable link on Thingiverse.

Thursday – We had made plans on meeting with Brandon ( a student worker in FabLab ) on the previous Monday, during class time. So we all met up at 5 pm to work on our first prototype. We first discussed the appropriate path that we should take t approach our project. After discuss we came to a conclusion that our first prototype should include a basic circuit and we should have done the testing for the hydration sensor. We measured out different distances to see which would pick up the most activity.We even made the band with cardboard.