Over this past semester, I’ve learned so much in the digital making realm. I came in wanting just to earn a credit for school but ended up gaining so much more out of it. The experience was invaluable and I’ve learned so much more about what this university can offer to its students. I’m sure the knowledge I’ve learned this semester will certainly benefit me in the future and beyond college.
What I learned:
3D Printing
One of the big lessons I learned, of course, was how to 3D print objects at the Maker Lab. Learning how to 3D print was definitely one of my main goals that I wanted to achieve coming into the class. From learning how to load up filament into the 3D printers to how to properly slice an object prior to uploading it to the printer I think I learned a lot about the functional capabilities of 3D printers. I learned the limitations of 3D printing and at the same time what the maximum limit of what they can achieve. For example, one issue we encountered was that our water pump’s exit valve wasn’t properly fitted for the tubing we bought. To resolve this we simply took the dimensions of the current water pump valve and 3D printed a new exit valve that fit more to the dimensions of our tubing. Then we attached it to the valve and it worked!
Below is a small GIF of us working with Vishal on 3D printing.
Watch the full video about BADM 395 here: https://vimeo.com/216385308
Fusion 360
Personally, I didn’t expect at all to learn how to any type of modeling or creation of actual objects in software. When we were exposed to Fusion 360 my mind was thoroughly blown. The software could really achieve incredible things that I had never even thought of. There were seemingly no boundaries to what could be made in Fusion 360, which was absolutely incredible. It even exported your models into Cura ready to be 3D printed just like that! Fusion 360 for our project was absolutely vital because we were making brand new objects that had never been made before. So we were working off from scratch and had to use a semi-advanced software to make what we needed so TinkerCAD was off the table. Pictured below was just one of many iterations of our modular plant holders. Learning Fusion 360 was definitely frustrating at times but honestly, the reward of transitioning a product in your head to a real life functioning object was more than worth the steep learning curve.
Full post on Fusion 360: https://publish.illinois.edu/digitalmaking2017/fusion-360-making/
Prototyping
Learning how to iterative prototype in BADM 395 was a great experience. With how the class is structured you naturally get into the groove of making, testing, and then (most likely) failing. Which is a great way to learn how to iterative prototype. The idea itself we had honestly morphed, changed, and evolved into what we ended up doing. Being able to go through all the stages of prototyping and physically building out different models was extremely helpful for the whole process. Personally, we built everything from paper to cardboard prototypes it was a great experience. Especially when we interviewed people on how they felt about our product using the prototype which was valuable in how we intended on changing or improving our product before the final presentation. Below is a picture of two of our three prototypes. The paper prototype was the first one we made before moving onto a more solid cardboard prototype. The third prototype we made was a water functional one with a $0.98 Wal-Mart bin as our fish tank.
Full post on prototyping: https://publish.illinois.edu/digitalmaking2017/cardboard-fun-near-bif/
Learning About Fab Lab
Exploring the Fab Lab was certainly one of the highlights of the entire class. There our class got to learn about the various resources offered at the Fab Lab and their overall mission. The things that the Fab Lab does for the community is also very incredible. From teaching the art of making things to hosting workshops for kids they do awesome work at the Fab Lab. They also help advise students, just like us, on how to make. For our own personal project, we used the Fab Lab to help us cut out the glass materials we needed to make our final fish tank. Additionally, we used the Fab Lab’s resources to help us order the acrylic in order to make the fish tank in the first place. Overall, they have a ton of resources over at the Fab Lab ranging from physical tools to the great mentors and instructors they have there that can assist you with pretty much anything you want to do.
Full post on Fab Lab: https://publish.illinois.edu/digitalmaking2017/learning-the-fab-lab/
Conclusions & Takeaways:
Honestly, I loved my time in BADM 395. It took a lot of hard work and a lot of time but overall this one of the most rewarding classes I’ve taken in college. In the College of Business there isn’t a lot of opportunities to make physical objects and products but here, in this class, we were able to do just that. It feels very empowering to be able to have thought of something and execute it to that degree of actually making the product happen over just a semester’s worth of work.
Moving on and going to California I really do hope I’ll be able to find similar resources such as the MakerLab or the Fab Lab. They are certainly organizations that I’d like to stay involved with moving forward as their potential to impact people seems almost limitless in scope.
With that, I hope everyone in their life at some point gets to experience the joy of imagining a product and then actually making it in real life because it is just wonderful. That, I believe, is how the future problems of the world will be solved. By regular people who are affected by the world’s problems getting access to tools like these and working to get their ideas made into real world products that can help people.
For more information about any of my projects or the video feel free to reach out to me at szethoian8@gmail.com.
I loved the gif! I’m glad you enjoyed your semester in the class. It’s great that you learned a lot from this class. Before I joined the lab I never thought of 3D printing and the College of Business had any connection. It’s great you plan on finding another makerspace, good luck in California!