Tag Archives: 3D Print

Prototyping & Feedback

Prototyping  

This week, 3Dream worked very efficiently and we made allot of progress with our final project (Vertical hydroponic drip system). There were multiple complications with 3D printing the voronoi bottle cages and it failed 3 times. At last, with some tweaks on Cura and removing all the supports and only including a brim, the four bottle cages turned out beautifully! Initially, I was worried that the bottle cages would fail without supports but it turns out that they were completely unnecessary. The four drip nozzles were also successful when printing.

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ll drip nozzel

Another milestone was better understanding and getting the sensors to work while attaching them to the bucket which will serve as the reservoir. My Teammate learned how to use an electric drill & caulking gun while building it.

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Now that we have tangible prototypes and received feedback, 3Dream has been able to develop a new sketch of what we imagine our final project to be.

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Feedback

In class, we met with two other groups and both sides presented their project and we shared options/suggestions. Further, we were expected to conduct an interview to gain additional information on how to better our project. Our group interviewed 3 separate people and plan on coming to together to share what we have learned and also to present our individual possible alterations of the prototype. I interviewed a post-graduate computer science male. Age 25, lives in a studio apartment, and is familiar with a hydroponic system but has never owned/maintained a plant before. The main takeaways that I gathered was that the bucket was not visually appealing and should definitely be remodeled. Users who do not have any experience in  caring for a plant are highly interested in our project and would own one if we made it more visually appealing and included a pH sensor.

Overall, after getting feedback from numerous sources, I deeply understand the importance of getting user feedback in all trials of development. I hope to hear more thoughts on our project in the comments below! Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog, see you next week!

Workshops and Busts

This week in class we had a workshop day where we got in our groups and worked on getting a prototype in for our project to begin printing! My group and I got together and we began to finalize some small details on our base design for our pour-over coffee contraption design. We were able to split our design into two parts: the base with funnel part and the water reservoir section. We were able to get two printers running with each of the two parts of the contraption printing. We were able to watch over the prints while in class and as we left the room the last time we saw the prints they were doing well. I was not able to get a look at the prints but cannot wait to see how it came out tomorrow when I visit the lab to get a look at them.

Additionally, I was able to fool around with the scanning technology that I unfortunately missed in the last class and scan a part of me to make a printed bust of myself. I was very impressed with the detail that the scanner was able to get from the scan in order to make a 3D image that resembled me pretty well! I was very impressed and thought it was so cool that I was using the technology that first got me interested in 3D printing in the first place! When I was a freshman here on campus, my best friend (who since then has transferred out) was working on a project for his art class that involved using a Kinect scanner to make a 3D printed bust of himself. So for me to be able to use the technology that got me interested in it in the first place was so satisfying and so much fun!

Week 6 Reflection

Speaker 1 –Alan Amling:

This week we had the pleasure of having Alan Amling present to us about how 3D printing is making an impact in UPS where he currently works. He explained to us how UPS delivers some tools and hardware to many companies and locations that was becoming difficult to maintain as these items had to be kept in storage until needed. He mentioned, however, how the company is beginning to partake in the use of 3D Printing in order to make it more feasible to have these tools and hardware available when needed by just creating them upon request. This is very interesting to hear as it shows that not only are pieces going to be more affordable thru the use of 3D printing but how the company will be more efficient altogether by also maximizing the efficiency of their storage spaces.

Speaker 2 –Dot Silverman:

We then had another speaker, Dot Silverman, who came in and spoke to us  about biohacking and a lot of interesting forms of biohacking/physiology with 3D printers and “Biofabrication”. One thing that really stayed on my mind after this presentation was her section on how organs and bones are now beginning to be 3D printed that have substances that can actually promote the regrowth of bones and organs which can be an amazing substitute to the current use of metal plates for current health issues. It was really interesting to hear about the biological science side of 3D printed that is not as publicized.

After the speakers presented, we were able to pitch some potential ideas for our projects, and although there wasn’t as much peer critiques as I expected, it was still a very beneficial exercise to get our ideas out there and see how people reacted to them. It was even more helpful to hear other people’s ideas as they can give other groups a little more motivation to challenge ourselves and make a more complicated pitch to kind of match the level of complexity as another team’s pitch.

Additionally, we were given time in class to attempt to 3D print something that we would like and I took that time to create a design as well as 3D print a dog tag for my dog, Toby.  It was printed pretty quickly as it is a small object and is now hanging around my dog’s neck. It is so cool for me to be able to say that I designed his dog tag even if it is not the most complex. Here is a link to the design:

http://a360.co/2GzLGI3