User:Kac487/Blog

Blogs

Blog#1

(A) Something amazing/beautiful:

This item on thingiverse.com struck me as being quite amazing. It is a snap together robotic hand originally designed for people who have disabled or impaired hands. This design can give a whole new level of freedom to people who require prosthetics. These kinds of designs would allow people to print their own parts and modify them to what fits them best. None of that freedom would be possible without 3D printing.

(B) Something funny or strange

3D printed toilet parts seems like an odd application for this kind of technology. However, this goes to show that some day people may possibly use 3D printing to assist with common household jobs/repairs.

(C) Something useless

These Star Wars themed cuff links seem rather useless to me. I can not think of too many occasions where someone would require formal attire and want to show off Star Wars figures at the same time. 3D printed metal cuff links seem like a good idea however.

(D) Something useful

This grocery bag holder strikes me as being particularly useful. This item looks like a compact/portable design that is fairly simple to print. the design could also be easily modified to add more hooks to carry more bags at once.

(E) Something which surprised you

This flexable junction surprised me because of the properties of the material that are being used to make it. I have always thought of 3D printed objects as being rigidly structured that will crack/break when under load. The fact that this object is flexable means that there is potential to design parts that can flex when placed under stress.

Blog#2

(A) General Impressions of the OSE project

The Open Source Ecology project, especially the Global Village Construction Set seems like an idea that would potentially be extremely useful for people who live in places where technological resources are not as abundant as they are here in America. The general idea is to develop blueprints for a number of open source industrial machines that would allow people to live a modern lifestyle. Marcin wants to do this under the constraints that these machines meet the following criteria.

- Open Source - Closed-Loop Manufacturing - Low Cost - High Performance - Modular - Heirloom Design - User Serviceable - Flexible Fabrication - DIY

Looking at the 50 different machines that Marcin is proposing, I believe that it is definitely possible to develop machines that meet most of the criteria. However, some of the machines like the Linear Solar Concentrator, and the Laser Cutter are definitely going to require parts that can not be fabricated. A second thing I have noticed is that safety constraints are not part of the criteria. The fact that these open source blueprints may be utilized by people who are not entirely educated in areas of fabricating machinery could prove to be problematic.

(B) The New Yorker on the OSE project

Link to article and response can be found here

In my oppinion the article written in the New Yorker is overly critical toward Marcin Jackubowski. The author of the article seems like she is trying to pick on any little negative detail related to Jackubowski's lifestyle. She picks at everything from Marcin's ethnic background, to the cloths he wears, to his personality. The article barely brushes on Marcin's goals, and long term plans of creating open source machinery in order to better peoples lives on a global scale.

Marcin Jackubowski's wrote a response to this article in one of his wiki pages. In this response, he professionally clarifies some of the misconceptions that have been caused as a result of the article.

(C) Creating a PSU OSE Project

One of my EE professors that might be interested in participating in an OSE project would be Dr. Jeffrey Mayer. He is a professor who teaches courses on energy conversion and power electronics. This is an area within electrical engineering that would be particularly useful in developing power sources for other machinery.

A second professor who may be interested is Dr. Mark Wharton. He teaches numerous circuit design courses, and he fixes printed circuit boards in his spare time. He may be interested in helping to create integrated circuits that would allow some of the machines in the OSE project to function.

Blog#3

(A) Write a response to the fallowing article

Link to article here

It seems like 3D printing prosthetic parts is increasingly becoming a feasible alternative to purchasing prosthetics developed using prior manufacturing techniques. 3D printing also gives those who are physically handicapped a new level of freedom in terms of the amount of customization that can be put into the prosthetic parts. Apart from hands and fingers, there are other prosthetic pieces being developed using 3D printing technology (see the first link in part (D)). Prosthetic legs, eyes, and even jaw pieces have been developed (granted they may not be as cheap to produce). But as 3D printers become more and more common, the prices of building these objects should begin to drop significantly.

(B) Who created this design and when/where was it done?

Mr. Richard Van As, a man from South Africa invented the Robohand after having lost several fingers in an accident with a table saw. He realized that the only prosthetic parts available for people with missing fingers were extremely expensive so he decide to attempt to construct his own. While seeking out cost effective ways to make a prosthetic hand, Richard came across a Youtube video showing a design for a mechanical hand. The video was posted by a man named Ivan Owen. Richard eventually got in contact with Ivan and the two met in South Africa to collaborate on creating a design. Eventually the two took their design to MakerBot in hopes that they would be able to 3D print low cost specialty parts.

(C) If you wanted to make one, where would you go to get it?

The (.stl) files to make a Robohand are available for download at Thingiverse.com

(D) How many articles can you find which reference this technology?

Here are a few links to articles covering similar topics:

- textually.org - gizmag.org - iflscience.com - washingtonpost.com - huffingtonpost.com

Blog#4

Response to team members thoughts on Blog#2

Dongao Yang- I like how Dongao brought up the point that the OSE project isn't very economically feasible if followed on a large scale. Using mass production to create machines has is downfalls, but one advantage is that it can be quite efficient in its use of material resources. If the OSE project was followed on a large scale, it would most likely result in much more wasted material than if a factory were used to make the same machines.

Hao Yuan- Hao made the point that the OSE project would prove to be most beneficial to those in undeveloped areas of the world. However, one of the issues with applying this project in those areas is the fact that there is also a lack of education in those areas (you can have all the blueprints in the world but what use are they if nobody can read them). To make a significant difference in undeveloped countries, a number of people would have to undergo training to learn how to build these kinds of machines.

Response to other classmates thoughts on Blog#2

Heisenberg Jones- Heisenberg (is that his real name???) provided some interesting insight into the functionality and goals of the Factor e farm. It seems like if the size of the OSE team/community continues to grow at the rate it has been, then there is definitely potential for the project to succeed at some level. The machines they create may not be ideal models that would meet all the criteria at first, but who knows what might happen further down the road. This is definitely an ambitious project, but then again there are a lot of ambitious people working on it.

Eric Prindible- Eric mentions that this project is essentially a form of engineering that uses modern ideas and concepts in a way that it would be possible to be applied even at a simpler time when the economy and the profits of large companies didn't have an influence on what people did and didn't have access to. This is a good point, there are many unseen benefits to working with open source technology, and it has the potential to develop quickly due to the lack of restrictions (patents, confidentiality, etc..) that these big corporations have to work around.

Brian Prentice- Brian explained in his blog that there is already open source technology for some of the machines that Marcin is trying to develop. More specifically Brian mentioned the Lsasersaur, an open source laser cutter. Since these kinds of projects are open source technology they could help speed along the progression of the OSE protect.

Carson Geib- I think Carson made an interesting point in his blog. He says that it is just as important to be able to perform hands-on work as it is to be able to do conceptual and mathematical work. As engineers we focus more on the conceptual and technical knowledge rather than on hands-on knowledge. Carson also seems skeptical on how Marcin plans to create these machines on such a low budget. I tend to feel a bit skeptical about this as well, especially since not every part in this project will be able to be built from scratch. The tractor engine for example is something that would need to be bought as a unit and then installed.

Tom Vassa- Tom mentioned made a point that he thinks that this project will not be able to affect as large an audience as Marcin intended. One of the main reasons for this is that the people using the OSE blueprints would need access and work with modern materials such as steel, iron and aluminum. These kinds of materials are often inaccessible in undeveloped countries. I agree with Tom, but I still think that developing blueprints for these kinds of machines is definitely a step in the right direction.

Blog#5

Important Posts from Last Few Years

March 5 2013: Meet The 'Liberator': Test-Firing The World's First Fully 3D-Printed Gun

• This article gives a description into the world’s first fully 3D printed gun. Even though this gun may not be very impressive, I expect this a first step in a larger debate that is to come as 3D printing technology advances.

April 26 2013: American Graphite to Develop Graphene 3D Printing Material

• This article describes the development of a new Graphite based material that can be used in 3D printers. I see this as an important breakthrough because it new printing materials can open up a wide variety of new options for the development of 3D printed objects.

October 10 2013: Innovative 3D printer prints on complex and bent surfaces

• I think this article is super interesting because it shows a 3D printer that is breaking the typical X, Y, Z axis system. This printer uses a laser scanner to scan the ground in front of it to allow the printer head to stay perpendicular to uneven surfaces. I can see this technology being applicable in a number of situations where other models would fail.

November 15 2013: Microsoft Releases Free 3D Printing App

• This post gives a description of a free Windows 8 app developed by Microsoft to load and make simple modifications to (.stl) files. I literally just downloaded it and it’s awesome. I would like to look into some of the other technology that Microsoft is developing in the realm of 3D printing and also see what kind of uses this app might have for EDSGN497J.

Not-So Important Posts from Last Few Years

2012 December 8 2012: Are personal 3D printers the next personal computers?

• This article seems to only speculate on whether or not 3D printers will be a part of the average household someday. It doesn’t really describe any kind of technological progression in the field of 3D printing.

December 10 2012: Inside The Worlds's Biggest Consumer 3D printing Factory

• This article give some good insight into Shapeways and their 3D printing process, but it doesn’t really cover anything new in the industry. Shapeways is a Dutch 3D printing company founded in 2007. They are based out of New York, and provide 3D printing services for objects that users upload online. I can see this online concept as being an important event but I do not believe that this article covers this.

2012 October 10 2012: 3D Printing (Additive Manufacturing) Is Turning the Impossible Into the Possible

• Once again this article seems like it is intended to give a status on where 3D printing currently stands rather than focusing on a specific technological development.

2012 October 30 2012: 3D printing- a new industrial revolution

• This article is one put out by BBC news that goes over the concepts as well as some of the current technology behind 3D printing. The video and article seem to focus more on 3D printing as a whole rather than on one specific development.

Noticeable Trends

• One 3D printing topic that seems to be receiving a lot of attention recently is the concept of 3D printing biomedical materials. A large amount of the hype is based around the possibility of one day being able to 3D print fully functional human organs. This would mean that sick patients would no longer have to wait for organ transplants, and drug tests could be performed on these organs which would reduce the need for animal testing. It is a really exciting area that has made significant progress in the past several years.
• Another area that I have noticed is receiving a lot of press is the idea of using 3D printing technology in outer space. Much of the hype is based around the potential to build robots that could "print" objects using materials already in space (e.g. lunar rocks). This could result in the ability to construct objects in space without having to transport the materials from the ground.

Contributions

• I found a few articles on "Anti Gravity 3D Printers". While the name might sound a little odd, this interesting method of 3D printing involves a robotic arm that extrudes a quickly solidifying material. It allows the machine to create structures on non-horizontal surfaces. Their most recent modification to the machine is a welding technique that constructs structures out of metal.

Anti Gravity 3D Printer

Anti Gravity 3D Metal Printer

Blog#6

What Projects Next?

• Sand Box Powder 3D printer-
  
  The Sand Box powder 3D printer is an open source powder bed 3D printing system being developed by Creo. The group claims that it is one of the only open source entry level powder based 3D printers, and the model is in the final stages of development.It has a positioning accuracy of 11 microns over the X and Y axes and an accuracy of 50 microns over the Z axis. The printers build volume is 9 in by 6 in by 5 in, and they claim it has an average printing speed of 3mm/hour. I think this would be a great next step to take the 3D printing class in because it would give us the ability to print more accurate/higher resolution parts. It would also allow students to learn more about other methods of 3D printing. Even though the hardware/software hasn't been released yet, it is definitely something to keep an eye on.

• Ninja Flex filament-
  
  This is a specialty polyurethane based filament that has flexible, rubber-like properties. I found a blog page giving an overview of the print settings used to generate a few test prints with the filament. This would allow us to expand the range of parts that we can print to include those that need to have some give or flexible properties when put under stress. The main setback to using this filament is the price. The blog writer claims that it is roughly 3X the cost of PLA, so it is something we would need to reserve for specialty projects.

• Conductive Filament-
  
  I think this is something that has been out for a while now, and is something that I personally would be interested in taking on as a project. This ABS conductive filament could be used with a duel extruder system to 3D print circuit board designs. I know we are currently working on a duel extruder printer project, and I think that this would make an awesome next step. This might result in us being able to print electronically functional parts with little effort.