This week we had not one, but two speakers! Both of them were very different but equally interesting. Alan, who was from UPS, spoke to us about how UPS is leveraging 3D printing. Our second speaker was Dot. She is currently getting her masters in education here at the university. Dot came in and told us about biohacking.

Alan talked to us about a 3D printer in their Louisville center than can print a product and have it out to anywhere in the United States the next day! Having this competitive advantage puts them far and above their competitors.  It is common to have to wait 3-5 days for your package, but with UPS’s new 3D printing service, they are hoping eventually they will be able to get the customer’s their packages by that day or the next!

Dot was extremely interesting to me. She talked to us about 3D printing organs and bones (biohacking). When first coming into college, I thought I wanted to major in biology. So, my love for biology along with business was combined nicely during this discussion! 3D printing is obviously cool, but when it could save someone’s life, that brings it to a whole different level. Dot expressed how she believes that 3D printing of organs could save hundreds of thousands of lives because there are just not enough organ donors to fulfill those needs. Dot also talked a lot about the Foldscope. This is a paper magnifying glass that costs under a dollar to make and can be 3D printing to be distributed throughout under privileged schools across the world. Foldscopes could allow students who normally wouldn’t have a chance to work with microscopes!

Overall, this class opened my eyes to different ways 3D printing could not only make people’s lives better, but to change and save their lives as well.

This week we were joined by students in an organization on our campus called Design for America. DFA is nationwide and their focus is to design things that solve real world problems. I could tell the four students from Design for America were passionate about the work they do. Their presentation was well organized and very informational. They shared with us their design process that consists of six different steps separated into two categories. The first category is Understand which includes the steps Identify, Immerse, and Reframe. The second category includes the last three steps of Ideate, Build, and Test.

This was really interesting to me because something I have been struggling with is just trying to think of a product, and not start with the basics of identifying where a problem might exist.

After we learned about this process they gave us the opportunity to go through each step. We were given four different profiles of blind people in the Austin, Texas community. Each of them had unique problems and we had to choose one of them and come up with a product for them. My group chose Rose who was a mother who had a daughter about to join preschool. Rose was faced with the challenges of having to learn the new route to her daughter’s school as well as be able to identify her daughter in a large group of students. We decided to focus on the identification problem Rose was struggling with.

The first thing we did when trying to come up with a product that could help rose we had to identify things about her. This means writing down everything we knew about Rose. Then, we had to immerse and come up with how Rose felt about her new challenges and what she might be thinking. A few things we decided Rose might be feeling is nervous and anxious about having to find her daughter after her school day is over. After that we reframed and came up with how can we statements. For example, “How can we help blind people identify specific people in a crowd?”

After we went through the steps in the Understand phase, we moved on to Create. We thought of some different ideas about how we could help Rose and ultimately came up with a bracelet or necklace that both Rose and her daughter would wear. This accessory would ideally have a GPS system in it that would tell Rose how close her daughter was to her (similar to TILE which you can attach to your phone or keys to help you locate them). It would also have a button Rose or her daughter could press that would alert the other that they are looking for them. We then built what the device would look like using pipe cleaners and magnets. When we presented to the class it seemed like everyone thought it would be a good idea and they gave us useful feedback. One thing someone mentioned was to have a way Rose could call her daughter through the device.

Overall, I really enjoyed the class and liked learning about how to come up with ideas for designing a product. I plan to use this approach when deciding what object my team and I want to create for our final project.

This week we had the pleasure of having students from Design for America come into our classroom and teach us the art of design. Being a Business major, designing and creativity is rarely in our curriculum, so this was an interesting and beneficial change. This group is extremely important to have. DFA allows young minds to think of issues going on and how they can fix them. What I found most important the presentation is how collaborative the whole process was. Everything they spoke about involved working with their fellow members to fix a problem; there was little to no solo work.

This organization and the people in it seemed very professional, philanthropic and genuinely interested in helping out. I think a lot of times society points out specific problems but it is rare that they do any further thinking about ways to fix that problem. Design for America is different in the fact that they take these issues one step further and try to fix the initial problem.

During their presentation, we had to choose a person who was blind that is having a specific problem in their life. We chose a young woman, Jess, that goes to UT Austin and is having trouble fitting in in social situations. We know that football games are popular at UT, so we narrowed our focus on that. We created a prototype of a walking stick with a sensor, attached to wireless headphones. These wireless headphones would let the person know where exactly where you are and if there is anything ahead of them that they should worry about (cars, potholes, etc.)

Having this sensor that lets her know where she is and if there is anything she should watch out for will allow Jess to feel more comfortable at football games. I believe students with disabilities can feel isolated when they aren’t able to do the same things students without disabilities can do. Therefore, I believe it is worth it to create these innovative products in order to make them feel more comfortable, even if it only changes one to two lives.

Overall, creating and designing is a much more complicated and collaborative process than I realized.  I think it is beneficial for everyone to understand the design process.

This week in class, we had students from the Design for America club on campus come speak to us about the design process. The entire time they were speaking, I was kicking myself for not finding out about this club sooner. The projects they were talking about sound like something I would have really enjoyed taking part in. I wish that I found out about this club my freshman or sophomore year, so I could have fully immersed myself in the work they are doing. Sadly, as a second semester senior, I am unlikely to join this specific club, but I intend to be on the lookout for similar organizations out in the real world to join after graduation.

The presentation was well organized and interesting, and the speakers- just students themselves- were knowledgeable, professional, and very helpful. My favorite part of the class was hearing about the different designs and solutions the club had come up with, such as the bear for patients with Alzheimer’s. I do wish they went into more detail about the solutions they came up with and the reasons behind them, such as explaining why a teddy bear vibrating in a certain way would calm down an Alzheimer’s patient.

The other part of the class I thoroughly enjoyed was when they walked us through the design process. I found it interesting that they said not to think of solutions at all in the beginning, but rather just problems that a person might face in a particular situation or in everyday life. I also liked that they gave us options of people to design for, and didn’t assign any group to any particular person; this allowed for the most creative ideas to happen naturally, as each group got to choose the persona that they most related to or found most intriguing.

My group chose to design for Brian, the entrepreneur in Austin who was worried about how his blindness would affect his commute to and from meetings with potential investors, as well as about how investors would view him when they found out he is blind. We designed a physical touch map, that Brian could feel his routes to and from meetings, using distance equivalents (for example, one inch is about fifty feet, and it usually takes Brian about twenty steps to walk fifty feet). We also decided to integrate an app into the idea, in order to keep Brian on track, as well as to alert him of possible changes in his environment, such as construction blocking part of the sidewalk.

What I liked best about this exercise was the feedback from the class after we presented our idea. There were a few things we hadn’t considered that the class brought to our attention, such as the fact that Brian may not need to be going to and from the same place for every meeting, so the map would have to include a wider section of the city than we were initially planning. It shows how important feedback is in order to design and produce a quality product that people will actually want to use.

http://a360.co/2nYSmc2

I decided to make a makeup organizer as it was one of the items I previously mentioned I wanted to create.

I was having a hard time creating an object. Dan made it look easy. I tried designing a star shaped cookie cutter, but I could not get the other side to be hollow. I tried using shell, but it continuously prevented me from doing it. Instead, I used the star design to make a little container for jewelry. It is like a little plate that you could put rings, earrings, etc in. I hope with more practice I can get better with Fusion 360.

This week we welcomed Dan Banach into our class to teach us a little bit more about Autodesk Fusion 360. I thought Dan was a phenomenal teacher and was very patient with all of us in class. I could tell he definitely knew his way around Fusion 360. Dan was able to make sure everyone was on par with the products we were making. In class we created an Illini ice scraper as well as a holder for you phone while it is charging. He showed us several different useful things in Fusion 360 such as the fillet, chamfer, and extrude tools. We were able to use these to our advantage while making both of our different products.

While making the first product, the ice scraper, I was a little overwhelmed with all of the different capabilities within Fusion. Luckily, Dan was a great teacher could help us one-on-one if we were having trouble with a step in the process of making. By the time we got to the phone holder I was feeling more comfortable with the way Fusion worked and could maneuver a little easier through the software.  We also learned other things in Fusion like cutting holes in shapes and setting proper measurements for products. The links to the two products I made in Fusion are copied below.

http://a360.co/2G5BFSP (ice scraper)

http://a360.co/2BT5doy (phone holder)

For the object I wanted to create on my own I chose a lamp shade. I followed directions using a youtube tutorial. There were different functions I used in creating this that we did not use in class. For example, the mirror function and duplicate function. I copied the link below to the lamp shade I created.

http://a360.co/2BUyWO7

I found there are several youtube tutorials for objects to create in Fusion. Once again, thingiverse is a great resource, but youtube is good for following directions and watching someone else create the object with you. I simply searched ‘create in fusion 360’ into youtube and a myriad of videos showed up providing instructions on how to create any object you can think of. I copied the link below which showed my search results

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=design+in+fusion+360

There are many different resources online to get inspiration for making objects, and I am excited to utilize these in the future.

Class Summary

In class this week, we began working with Fusion 360 software to design our own 3D models. At first, I was skeptical of the prospect of drawing our own models given the multitude of resources at our disposal on websites like Thingiverse. But as the class moved along, I began to see why having these design skills will be critical to our advancement in 3D printing. The ability to truly customize something on Fusion stuck out to me as a major advantage of using the software. On Fusion, there are endless possibilities of not only what we can make, but how we can make it. The software has a plethora of features that I have grown more and more comfortable with as I use them more frequently.

Speaker Notes

I thought Dan did an excellent job keeping us moving and engaged throughout his lecture. Though I must admit, I struggled to keep up with the pace a bit. That being said, I think that my struggling to keep up with the speed of teaching was actually beneficial as it allowed me to do some tinkering and screw a few things up before getting it right. Through this process, I feel that I learned more from Fusion than I would have if I was blindly following directions at full speed. I think I was most interested in the parallel and perpendicular lines tool that Dan showed us because they are quite forgiving of unequal designs and allow us to create and draw and then go back and edit later. I didn’t quite finish the iPhone stand in class, I got a little bit behind and then class was finishing up and I wasn’t able to catch up in time.

My Designs

Below, I’ve posted a photo and link to my ice scraper design. As the first thing I have truly designed using Fusion, I am quite proud of my ice scraper.

http://a360.co/2H4MMN4

When I went to make my own design, I definitely struggled with coming up with something to make. What could I make with relatively low skill in Fusion that would actually be something I could use practically. I came up with a sunglasses clip for my car that I saw on Thingiverse last week. Using the existing model as a reference was extremely helpful in making my own design. A relatively simple structure still forced me to use many if not all of the tools that Dan showed us in class. Below is a photo and link to my design:

http://a360.co/2Bp95wv

Learning More

http://www.learningfusion360.com/lesson-0-before-getting-started/

I found this website to be a helpful refresher of what we learned in class, as well as providing some useful information about when things go wrong. It was cool to see how the author was messing up a lot of the same things that I messed up, and learn how to correct those mistakes with ease.

I’m excited to continue the making process and begin printing!

Unfortunately, I was unable to come to class this week because I was sick. However, I was able to learn Fusion 360 on my own through the YouTube videos and found it quite fascinating. It has a lot more capabilities and features than Tinkercad, so I was excited to explore this software on my own time and speed. The YouTube videos were quite helpful and the instructor lead me through, step by step. First, he talked through the basic functions of Fusion and some short cuts. I first made a very simple rectangle and extruded it, allowing it to become three dimensional.

Then, I made a hole in the center, making it semi hollow.

The next part was definitely the most challenging. I had to put two circles on the surface of the rectangle and then put a smaller circle inside that circle and push it through the rectangle. This is the part of the video I had to rewind and pause a couple times, but after doing it fully through, I got a hold of it.

After adding all the final touches, (the fillet and making sure the dimensions are all correct and lined up) I finished the box! Now all I had left was the holes for the screws and the lid. Adding the holes to the screws was simple because I only had to do it once and then I was shown the “mirror” feature on Fusion. This feature allowed me to create the screw holder on one side and then mirror it to the other side using a plane. This would be very useful when creating objects with similar features on all sides. Below is the final product (without the lid).

Then, came the lid. This was simple because all you had to do was select the top face and extrude it farther up. Below is right before I extruded it upwards.

Overall, I liked learning about Fusion 360 on my own time and being able to pause and redo things I didn’t understand. After playing around with Fusion on my own, I created this simple watch.

In order to make this, I had to create a rectangle and put small holes at the end and one “clasp” at the end, extruding the hole.  Then, I added a simple circular face with a smaller circular face in order to create the actual clock part of the watch. Of course this is a rough design of a watch, however with some more training and time I believe I could create a more complicated version.

Overall, I believe Fusion 360 is an extremely useful and easy to use and I am excited to learn more about it in the future!!

Dan Banach from Autodesk came into class this week to lead a workshop on Fusion 360. This software is a cloud-based system that allows you to create models for on and off screen objects. I have never used a software like Fusion 360 so this was really new to me. When I first tried downloading the software it did not work because my computer was not updated. I thought this was a little frustrating; it took me 45 minutes to update my computer. Now I am happy it forced me to do that because my computer was way overdue to be updated. We designed an ice scraper and IPhone holder on Fusion 360. I thought this workshop was helpful and informative because Dan walked through each step slowly. He explained where to click and why you click on that function. This made it easy for us to follow along and learn the system. For me, I learn better when the teacher goes through the project instead of working on my own. I think a lot of students would agree with me.

I did not save my Fusion 360 creation so I cannot attach a picture. What I found really cool is that our project would start with three straights lines then you press one button (expand) and it would become a 3D model. It looked so real on the screen. If you hold the shift button and use your mouse to move around you could view all angles of the object. With this you could change one side of the object or make holes on certain sides. I think this software is beneficial to know how to use for class and in the work force. Fusion 360 develops technical skills that are valuable for business jobs. I am always trying to improve my technical skills so I am glad I learned Fusion 360.

I looked up articles on Fusion to read more about it. Every article had the word “engineer” attached to it. I never thought of myself as someone who could understand what engineers learn, but now knowing the basic level of Fusion I feel more confident.

I thought this article was really interesting. It talks about GoPro incorporating Fusion into their camera. They are using it as a virtual reality lens to record 360- degree video. Fusion was picked from an applicant pool of over 20,000 companies. This shows how great of software it is and that it can be used with different items. Check out this article!

http://appleinsider.com/articles/17/07/11/gopro-trials-fusion-360-degree-vr-camera-with-fox-others-ahead-of-late-2017-launch

The link below is an article that provides further detail about Fusion 360. There is information on different features of Fusion 360, such as sculpt.

https://www.engineering.com/DesignSoftware/DesignSoftwareArticles/ArticleID/12675/Fusion-360-An-Integrated-CADCAM-Solution.aspx

This week Jeff Ginger came in to talk to us about his passion for 3D printing. Jeff is the director of the campus fab lab. This is a place where any student can use the resources to learn, design, print, and collaborate. The area is open for creativity and experimentation. Jeff emphasized that fab labs are accessible to the public because this way everyone has an opportunity to learn and create. Jeff showed a map of fab labs around the world. Some of the locations were China, Australia, and South America. I thought this was fascinating how the advancement of technology is spreading throughout the world. We are all in this journey together trying to discover the future.

Jeff still identifies as a “librarian”, but not the typical one. He considers himself a modern librarian because he is providing an open space for learning 3D printing, instead of books. I went on the campus fab lab’s Instagram to view the pictures and examples of projects created there.

This picture shows kids at camp in the UIUC fab lab. It is great to see young kids learning and using their creativity in the lab. It creates a different way of thinking. Getting kids involved at a young age will expand their knowledge on the products.

Wow! A 10 year old was able to make this. This shows me all the possibilities that the fab lab has to offer.

Tinkercad:

Also, in class we got time to work with our teams on printing our logo. This was exciting because it was my first time experiencing the printing process. We were introduced to tinkercad. This virtual printing platform made me feel so high tech! I was able to pick designs, shapes, letters, and sizes. It reminded me a little of WordArt. I thought it was simple to navigate and use. We worked on including letters in our design, but had issues with spacing. Once we organized the design, we decided to make it smaller. Our first run through the printer did not work because the material spooled in the printer and got caught on something. This showed me that printing is not always going to be perfect. It is important to have patience.

Finally, the printing worked in just 36 minutes. It was so cool watching the nozzle create the shape. The process seemed very tedious, but came together perfectly. I am very happy with how our product turned out and I cannot wait to introduce the “Money Makers” team to the class.

This is a photo of our final product.

This week Jeff Ginger came into our class to speak to us about the FabLab and the importance of 3D printing. He spoke a lot about the importance of exposing children, especially in their early teens, to creativity and curiosity. Jeff made this realization when he was working at a library and discovered some teens playing Minecraft. Minecraft is a video game that allows players to create and build their own world using blocks. Jeff made the connection between Minecraft and 3D printing and decided to introduce 3D printing to their young minds. As Jeff says, I believe this can be extremely beneficial for the community, allowing young teens to imagine and create things from their developing minds. In addition, Jeff speaks about the Fablab and how it is one of the only ones that is still open to the public. This not only allows the public to have a creative outlet, but also allows people from different areas and backgrounds to share their ideas and hopefully come out with something amazing. Overall, Jeff was an excellent speaker and got me even more interested in the creative and art aspect of 3D printing.

Also, in class, my group had the opportunity to create our logo. When thinking of what we wanted our team name to be, we wanted it to be something cohesive and collaborative. We then thought of the phrase, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” This made us think of a puzzle piece. Therefore, we created a puzzle piece and named our team, Team Synergy.

In order to make this 3D print, we had to first learn Tinkercad. Tinkercad is the system that allows you to create your print and scale it. The two students, Billy and Dash were extremely helpful and energetic in teaching us how to use it. Tinkercad was pretty easy to play around with and my group and I quickly figured out the best way to make our puzzle piece. We printed it and it turned out well the first time! We were super interested in watching how layer by layer the printer created the design we created just minutes before. It was pretty incredible.

When searching online for other resources that could help me learn more about 3D printing, I stumbled upon this DIY Weather LED Light Display. This 3D printed LED lamp shows the weather through colors. For example, if it’s snowing, white lights will come down the lamp. If its raining, blue lights will come down the lamp. If its warm, red, if its cold, blue, etc. Prints like these make me realize how much you can do and how limitless 3D printing really is. Overall, this week was great and I am happy we finally got to use the printers!

http://www.3ders.org/articles/20180204-this-diy-3d-printed-lamp-shows-real-time-weather-with-amazing-led-light-display.html