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