User:Krm5222

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About Me

Krm5222lion.jpg
Name Kristen Murray
Major Mechanical Engineering
Expected Graduation May 2013
Current Jobs Edsgn100 Senior Lead TA

Edsgn100 drawing tutor

ITS Lab Consultant

Previous Jobs Manufacturing Engineer at Datalogic Automation, Inc.

Merchandise Team Leader at Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom

Cashier at a ShurSave grocery store

Hometown Sugarloaf, PA (Hazleton area)
Current city Allentown, PA
Hobbies Windsurfing

Traveling

Tennis

Any water sport that I have the opportunity to try!

Short-term Goals Attain a full-time Design Engineer position after graduation

Move to the DC metro area

Learn to surf

Hike Rickett's Glen


Contact Me

Email: [email protected]


Blogs

Week One

Go to thingiverse.com. Use any means you like to look through the objects submitted to thingiverse and pick out 5 designs which you consider to be the most: 1. useful 2. artistic/beautiful 3. pointless/useless 4. funny 5. weird. Link to the 5 objects you’ve chosen, and discuss why you consider them well described by the 5 adjectives above.

Useful Carabiner I find this carabiner to be useful because I used to constantly lose her keys,and having a carabiner saved me from so much frustration. This design would remove the need for a spring in a carabiner, which is generally the piece of a carabiner that I break. If the right type of plastic was selected to print this carabiner, it would theoretically last much longer than a store-bought carabiner. This design may not be appropriate for climbing or other adventure sports, but it would work very well to hold keys.
Artistic/Beautiful Chen-Gackstatter Thayer Vase This vase is very beautiful. The level of detail contained in this design is astounding, and the symmetry of the object makes it very visually pleasing. According to the description of this vase, the shape was created mathematically using a Chen-Gackstatter Thayer Surface.
Pointless/Useless Buttered Corn I find this Buttered Corn design to be extremely useless. I'm not really sure why anyone would waste their time modeling an ear of corn, let alone add butter and a husk.
Funny iPhone Upgrade Kit This design of an iPhone Upgrade Kit doesn't do anything other than bang the life out of an iPhone. It is a humorous idea but could also be classified in the "useless" category... unless you're looking to destroy your iPhone, that is.
Weird Beaver This beaver model is apparently supposed to be a chess piece. Why anyone would like to play chess using a beaver as a piece is beyond me. I find it quite odd that someone took the time to create such a detailed design of a beaver.

Week Two

Read http://reprap.org/wiki/BackgroundPage. This should give you some feel for where Adrian Bowyer was coming from when he started the RepRap project. Respond to the following:

1. Do you think his goal of a ‘self-replicating universal constructor’ is feasible? What remains to be done to achieve this, or alternatively what would prevent such a goal?

I do not that that a self-replicating universal constructor is feasible. Many parts of a 3D printer can be made by another printer, but to have a printer be completely self replicating, it would require every single piece of the printer to be made from another printer. A problem I see with this is that the printer would have to print the electronics, hardware and extruder. The electronics would need to be made from conductive material. The hardware would need to be very precise and strong. The extruder would need to bemade from a material that is easily melted for original extrusion but heat-resistant when it came to printing other things. These issues, along with the fact that printers often have unforeseeable problems during the construction that would be hard to troubleshoot without human interaction, make the idea of a self-replicating universal constructor seem far-fetched.

2. The phrase “wealth without money” is both the title of his article and the motto of the reprap project itself. What does this phrase mean? (To him and to you if they differ). Discuss implications, problems, and possibilities associated with this idea.

Wealth without money means being able to create anything you can imagine without having to go to a store or order the product online. Having an advanced 3D printer essentially allows a person to create any product at home. On another note, manufacturing can grow exponentially if a 3D printer can make products to sell along with new printers. Eventually, there would be more printers than a person or a company could ever think of using at once.

3. The Darwin design was released in 2007. It is 2012 now. Imagine future scenarios for RepRaps and their ‘cousin’ 3D printing designs (Makerbots, Ultimachine, Makergear, etc.) how do you think the RepRap project (community, designs, website, anything and everything) might evolve in the future? Describe as many scenarios as you can envision.

In the future, RepRaps will continue to evolve, but at some point, the advancements will level off asymptotically. When the price of fully-assembled industrially-produced 3D printers has dropped low enough, I believe that a 3D printer will become a household appliance like a refrigerator or a stove. Every family will have one. Objects printed on 3D printers will be used for fun and for functionality. Kids will make art projects using 3D printers, people will create their own knickknacks on 3D printers, and some people will use a 3D printer to fix things around the house. I think that, like the way it is now, only very ambitious people will attempt to make their own 3D printers. Like any other hands-on task, many people will rather just pay for the work to be done instead of doing it themselves. For instance, anyone can buy parts for their car and do their own maintenance, but the amount of people who spend the time learning how to do repairs versus the amount of people who just pay a mechanic to do the repair is quite small. I do not think RepRaps will die off, but I also do not think that the use of RepRap machines will grow much larger in the coming years.