This week was one of my favorite weeks in class. We started to learn how to scan and eventually 3D print those scans! We started with learning how to scan ourselves. I got the opportunity to scan one of my teammates, Jason. We used iPads with a Kinect. In order to scan, the person being scanned had to stay completely still while the scanner slowly moved 360 degrees around the person being scanned. After this process, we put the scans on the cloud and downloaded them to the computer. After cleaning the scans, we then got to 3D print it.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get around to printing my face, but I got to see one of my classmates, Shayna’s come to life! The amount of detail the scan created was extremely impressive.

This week we also watched a video on 3D scanning with Jay Leno. He was trying to print a car part that broke/rusted over. He scanned it, then revamped it, and printed a new car part that was the correct dimensions and size! Doing this is less expensive and less tedious than finding a car part elsewhere. An important aspect of scanning is the process of reverse engineering. In the case of Jay Leno’s garage, he had a part that needed fixing because there wasn’t enough ventilation in the part, so after they scanned it, they added ventilation holes to the part, creating a new and improved car part.

In addition to scanning, we moved further along in our project planning. We made our Project Testing Plan and determined our test subjects. However, after some further research and talking to experts at the Fab Lab, we may want to change course for our final project.

Overall, this week was very informative and allowed my group and I to talk out the details of our project.