Post 15

My last blog post for score! I am both happy and sad to write this last blog post ever in my High School career. I would just like to briefly thank everyone involved in my SCORE project. First off I would like to thank Austin Waldsmith who has been working the hardest on the project, besides me off course. Secondly, I would like to thank Jacob Martz who has provided some work and a lot of dweebiness. Thirdly, I would like to thank Kevin Cellucci who has joined late but still does a lot of work for us and was a great addition. Fourthly, I would like to thank Mr. Jewett for allowing us to do 3-d printing for our SCORE project. Lastly, I would like to thank Mr. Logsdon for making this project possible and allowing us to mess around with printers for six weeks. I would also just like to thank my parents for having me and providing support throughout my time in SCORE. Also, I would like to informally thank Alex Walder for providing inspiration and a lively mood in the printer room. So, thank you for all of your help and stuff. Well we are all finishing up our last parts of the project and are beginning to wrap things up. We will spend our last few days in our printer room that has become our home away from home. Placing the finishing touches on the room with posters of the history and storage capability, we leave the room ready for the next generation to continue the pursuit of excellence.

Chris Xavier Signing Off.

Post 14

So I was working through my other part of score other than just printing cool stuff and configuring the printers to work well. This part of the project is the manual or tutorial on the use of the 3-d printer. This tutorial will be used to help incoming students from classes such as pro-engineering and industrial design to use the 3-d printers. This is important because the printers will allow students to take what they design and turn them into tangible object. This will be the first time that these classes are able to create a computer design and make it a reality. This offers a bridge between the design process and prototyping. It also allows for students to realize their computer work as real life art, which is a magical thing. So far I have been able to make a large portion of the tutorial. It includes step by step instructions that are accompanied with screen shots of the computer to make sure the instructions are straight forward and both written and visual. Hopefully, this prevents any confusion for the user and allows the printers to be utilized effectively by future students. I will continue to work on this tutorial because I still have to finish outlining the different settings in skeinforge, which are vast and numerous. This will take a little while but will make it easy for students to know what settings are needed for what projects and when to turn certain ones on or off. This should be beneficial for the future printers to come.

Post 13

Today we are making the Devil’s head. This is probably our most complex design so far. It is definitely the most intricate one with incredible detail in the face area. Although we are doing a devil’s head, I assure you it is only because it is an awesome design and has nothing to do with worshiping the devil. Or at least I can say that for myself, I am not too sure about Waldsmith, Kevin, and Jacob. Of course with a devil’s head, we had to run into a few problem here and there. First off, the first time we attempted the print, the bed of the printer was not at the right temperature. Instead of being 95 degrees Celsius, the printer was at 80 degrees Celsius. Although this does not seem like a significant difference, it is enough to make the head not stick correctly to the bed and lift up and screw up the entire print. So after dealing with this we had to correct the bed and make sure it was at the right temperature before starting the print a second time. Also, I would just like to say that it was kind of a pain as well because it was the longest item we had ever skeinforged at a hefty 4 hours. This just demonstrates its complexity. But anyways, the second print went decently well and the head came out really detailed and extremely accurate. I do not quite know what we will do with it but it’s pretty cool.

Post 12

So Austin Waldsmith was writing about the gender of the printer and its sexuality, and he came to the conclusion that the printer was a woman and it needs a donor to provide the parts to print. I strongly and passionately disagree with this statement by the other student, Austin Waldsmith. I believe that the printer is number one not of a certain gender. Similar to a flower, it does not have a specific gender; instead, the printer has the capability to reproduce on its own. As an example of this reproduction ability, our own printer is made of parts that were printed by another 3-d printer. This is very interesting that they are able to reproduce the parts needed to make another printer. This also means that a 3-d printer is capable of making its own parts to repair itself. Not only is this awesome, but it also clearly makes the printer not of a specific gender and illustrates that it is similar to that of a flower. So this brings me to dispute his second point about the sexuality of the printer. It is pretty obvious that the printer is asexual in nature. It does not require another printer to produce objects, so it clearly is self-sufficient in its production and does not require any form of donor. This makes the 3-d printer asexual and capable of reproduction on its own. I rest my case and am clearly correct in my conclusion. Take that Austin Waldsmith, better luck next time.

Post 11

After powering through six posts in one day, my head is hurting a little bit. I also feel rather sentimental looking back at all the good moments we had during our SCORE project. It nearly brought me to tears thinking that we only have one week left. Each moment becomes more valuable because you never really notice what you have until it is gone. I look back and see myself getting very angry at the printers. Then I see the opposite, noticing the excitement and joy that comes from a successful print of something we thought was impossible. From the good times to the bad, I enjoyed each moment and it is sad to watch it come to a close. The thing that I now laugh at is the fact that Mr. Jewett had tried very hard to get me out of the school and into another score project. He mentioned that last year’s seniors that were in the school for score were miserable and unhappy kind of like zombies. But I found it quite the opposite. Having score in the building did not affect the experience. I was able to take a break from school each day in the printer room and with the others involved it did not resemble the school experience at all. It turned out rather fun and interesting. We were able to print out stuff that was useful and also other stuff that was wildly pointless but really cool. It has been a good time and I’ll miss printing stuff.

Post 10

Let’s discuss the crew right now. So first off we have Austin Waldsmith. How do you describe Waldsmith? It is very difficult because he is such an…interesting character. Starting with his voice, he is able to make anything he says sound so very interesting. Also he accompanies it with great hand gestures like he doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands when he talks. Next we have Jacob Martz. He is mainly described as a little bit dweeby and is very sporadic in when he stops by. He also livens the mood with his terrible jokes and corny sense of humor. Up next, we have the newest member Kevin Cellucci. He has been a good addition to the printer crew with his drive and ambition. He has also come up with a lot of great ideas for new prints, including the Colbert piggy bank. He also adds to the environment with his music and jokes. The entire crew is like a band of misfits but we have a good time chilling and working on printers. We also have a few characters that stop by to hang out once and a while. We have Kurt who wonders in cause he gets bored with his life and he seems kind of depressingly hopeless in his SCORE project. Then we have Chrissy who stops by once and a while and brightens the mood with her cheery attitude and smile. Then Alex comes by once and provides a low key energy that is much needed.

Post 9

After perusing online for a while, we came across a cool technique that is being used in 3-d printing. The technique was used to smooth out objects and rid them of small bumps and imperfections. The technique also made the products much more glossy and impressive in their finish. The technique involves using acetone to polish off the final product. Acetone is a chemical that is used as a cleaning agent in many different settings from laboratories to industrial uses. However, Acetone is also potentially dangerous due to its flammability and its toxicity. The combination of extremely hot printers and flammable material poses a problem but we believe if we keep them separate enough we could easily prevent this problem. The toxicity we believe can be dealt with safely when we use rubber gloves. This should prevent any harm done to us. We are planning on using nail polish remover that has a high acetone content. This will hopefully make the products look even better and more finished. This will make them more impressive and more spectacular. We will be looking for more information on this process and hopefully implement it on our recent creations. Even though our recent products are well done with minor flaws, the Acetone would make them more perfect. It would make them incredibly smooth and improve them even more. I think it could really help the angel, Buddha, and the Colbert piggy bank a lot and make them the actual master pieces that they deserve to be.

Post 8

It’s Buddha time! The next logical decision was to print out a Buddha. Now the selection of Buddhas was huge. We ended up selecting a Buddha that was very complex and would really show off the power of the printer. The Buddha consisted of a base with an intricate design around the outside that gave it a very traditional feel. The actual Buddha had on a robe that was draped over him, which gave it an intricate pattern. It also included many small details like toes and a complicated face. This was going to be a tall task for the printer but we thought it was up for it. The skeinforge process took nearly half of our day and barely left us enough time to print it. We began the printing process immediately after. We each left for our respected sports and would return back to check its progress. We returned later that day and came back to a great surprise. The Buddha was just completing and it was spectacular. The entire thing came out with absolutely no flaw and the face was so well done. Unfortunately, Austen took it home to show to his mother and she liked it so much she would not let him take it back. We decided to print another for our room and this time watching the print was very interesting. It made a strange design on the inside that perplexed us. We were unsure why it did it but who cares cause the second Buddha came out just as well as the first. Now we rub its belly for luck before each print.

Post 7

After the success of the angel we decided another big project was the way to go. So skewering thingiverse for a new design, we stumbled across a master piece. This master piece was a Stephen Colbert Piggy Bank. Just to describe it a little, it was a normal piggy bank with Stephen Colbert’s head placed on the front. Surprisingly, it was only one of tens of Stephen Colbert’s heads. They also had a Colbert-rex that was a Stephen Colbert dinosaur. But I digress; we began skeinforging the Colbert pig. Again, this process was quite lengthy. I think it was about two hours because it had a very complicated inside because it had to be hollow to hold change. After this we started to print the pig. The pig was built with scaffolding in order to allow the legs to come out right. The pig was half way done and we were unable to see the full beauty of it because of the scaffolding but it did look pretty cool. We finished the Colbert piggy bank in about four hours. After it was finished we peeled it away from the base and began the annoying and intricate process of getting rid of the scaffolding. This process had to be done carefully to ensure the pig did not get hurt. It took about 30 minutes but once it was done the piggy bank was revealed in all its glory. The Colbert head was flawless and the pig’s body was also very well done. We had done it! Colbert Pig Lives!

Post 6

The angel of death from Dr. Who was next on the list of things to print. We had decided it was time to stop messing around with not very intricate, small projects. We were about to embark on the biggest print we had done to date. The angel measured just shy of 10 centimeters tall and had a base with a radius of about 3 centimeters. Before we could print the angel we had to skeinforge it first in order to turn it into a code that the printer could read. This code includes the layers that will be printed and the structural support for the inside of the object. This process which usually takes a few minutes took about an hour and half. The longevity of this process was caused by both the angel’s size and complexity. After this was finished, we moved on to printing it. At the start, the estimated time of completion was 12 hours. Fortunately, this time reduced during the printing process to a more realistic three hours. As the angel came together we were slightly confused. The base was hollow with a circle in the middle. Eventually, we realized that it was building the angel with a support in the middle so the shape would not droop down in the center. After waiting in anticipation for a couple of hours, the angel had finished. The detail that the printer was able to achieve was phenomenal. It had barely any errors and these errors were minimal. Our first big project was complete and a total success.

Post 5

Printer troubles plague the entire day. It all started when the printer was not quite extruding material at the correct rate. At some points it would do a full layer, then at other points it would barely extrude any material at all. We began to research to find the problem that was causing this issue. After a little while, we determined it had to be a hot jam in the nozzle of the printer. What this meant was that because of high temperatures some plastic burnt and hardened in the nozzle and was preventing new plastic from extruding. We attempted the easy solution of poking it out with wire but this did not solve the problem. We then moved to removing the nozzle and replacing it with a new one. This was a very frustrating process and caused a lot of aggravation. Fortunately, we had finished a ninja star earlier that day and was able to go throw it at stuff to relax a little bit. I did almost take off chrissy’s head though when it curved suddenly, but that disaster was avoided. Going back to the printer, we tried the new nozzle that took us only 4 hours to put on. After about 20 minutes, we began to have the same problem. We made the decision to change out the nozzle again because we thought the problem was another hot clog. This took us only a few minutes this time. After doing this we realized the problem was merely the fact that the speed of extrusion was too fast. All our work was pointless and we all felt pretty silly. We changed one setting in a matter of 10 seconds and it worked perfectly. L

Post 4

It was 7:45 a.m. on a Friday morning. The night before, we kicked Mr. Door Stopper inside the printer room and shut the door for the night. Between that time and 7:45, someone stole Mr. Door Stopper (dun dun dun). We searched the printer room for the little guy that props our door open but we had no luck. We immediately began speculating who the culprits could have been. At first we thought maybe it was a janitor, but then we thought Why would a janitor need a door stop? So we shifted our suspicion to the teachers. Previously in the week, Dr. Burgess stopped by and checked out our project. On the way out she commented on our door stop and said she just had to have one. Was this the motive that could propel a teacher to do such unspeakable crimes? But then we had to think back to weeks earlier. Mr. Koughan and Mr. Bilsbury both asked for that same exact door stop. Could they have over heard Dr. Burgess saying it the day before and knew she would appear to be the likeliest suspect? The questions were endless and no answers were unraveling in front of us. We took the next step and began dusting for prints. The door knob was too riddled with them to make out any clear prints. All we managed was a few partials. We moved next to collecting a hair that lay on the floor. Unfortunately, DNA testing was inconclusive. The mystery went unsolved and the case of Mr. Door Stopper remains open, for now.

Chris: Week 1 Post 3

After the first print with the second printer, we were noticing a strange pattern that it was printing on the first layer. It printed a strange series of diagonals on the base and then began the regular design. We thought this could have been just the design we were downloading, but unfortunately after a few more tries with different objects we still were receiving the same results. I spent a good two and a half blocks trying to assess the difference between the software on printer one and the software on printer two. There did not appear to be a difference. I went in and attempted to solve the problem by changing settings in skeinforge, which is the software that slices the object and designs the different layers it prints. In this program, I was able to find that it was creating a layer zero, which was the strange pattern that was laid out before the actual design. After extensive research on the program and its layers, I was still unable to figure out how to remove this layer from printing. We ended up leaving the layer be for now and actually noticed that if the base did not have to be completely smooth, this layer was actually great for allowing the plastic to form a good base because it had something to stick to. Using the second printer, I was able to print two very well done designs. One was a rocket that came out extremely well and the other was a twisting cup that also printed well. This printer actually printed better than the first one without any alterations. We will begin work on the third one next week. 

Chris: Week 1 Post 2

We started setting up the second printer along with tweaking the first one. We made minor adjustments by altering the screws that raise and lower the extruder. We had to try multiple times in order to get the extruder to hover just above the bottom layer and not actually dig into it. This was the first step to really finding the best settings to run the printer with. We also experimented with the temperature of the extruder to make sure it was optimal for printing. The higher temperature of 205 degrees Celsius worked best when testing it on making miniature turtles. Also, a higher base temperature of 85 degrees Celsius helped the plastic stick better on the bottom and make a smoother surface. These two changes really helped perfect the miniatures turtles and will hopefully help in our later prints. We also tried to use a small fan to prevent droop. Unfortunately, this did not work and cooled the extruder and base down too much.

After doing all of this, we began to set up the second printer. We were able to download all of the software easily and were able to run the printer rather quickly in comparison to the first one. It took me a little while to get the printer to reverse in order to replace the plastic filament. However, I was able to replace the green filament with the black filament. I realized that even a small plastic left in the extruder goes a long way. A few centimeters equates to around a foot. This showed that the spools of two pound filaments will go a long way. 

Chris: Week 1 Post 1

Jake, Austin, and I began work on the 3D printers. After an hour or two of downloading software, we were able to get the printers connected. Unfortunately, we ran into a little trouble when we tried to place the plastic filament spool into the feeding system. It took us a while but then we realized how easy it was to just loosen a spring and place it into the feeder.

We looked over the “how to” instructions for the printer, and we downloaded a design for a hollow cube. Using all of our abilities we followed the steps to convert the design into the proper format. Then we printed, or attempted to print the cube. After about layer three of eighty-five, the plastic was stuck on the dispensing tip due to the temperatures upwards of two hundred degrees Celsius. The cube wound up being just a thin layer of plastic. We went back and let the printer cool back down and then heat back up, in order to prevent the tip and bed from being too hot. We then made a second attempt at the hollowed out cube. It only took about twenty minutes for the cube to be done.

The printer works by laying down a foundation of the outline of the shape and then a series of diagonals. It repeats the steps over and over, layer by layer; each time doing the diagonals in opposite directions. As it gets to the middle of the cube, it makes a pattern that adds air into the plastic that saves material but keeps strength. The finished product was relative well made with smooth sides but slight droops. For the second day, I would call that a success. 

Xavier's Outline

Chris Xavier

3/13/13

Score Outline

Thesis:

The design of the 3-Dimensional printer has been and will continue to be a revolutionary tool that has a broad effect on engineering, industry, and the art community.

Body:

            The process and procedures of using a 3D printer and making rapid prototypes and models.

[6] Modeling

Manufacturing needs virtual blueprints from CAD (Computer aided design) or animation modeling software

These models are sliced into digital cross-sections for printer to successfully use guidelines.

The standard data interface is the STL file format

[6] Printing

Printer reads the design from .stl

Lays down layers of liquid, powder, or sheet material to build the model from the cross-sections

Layers are automatically fused to make the final shape

Printer resolution describes layers thickness

Typical layer thickness is 100 micrometers

Body:

            Rapid Prototyping, including those made from 3D printers, is a necessary tool used in the production of new products in industry.

[1] The production of prototypes has increased from 1.85 million in 1998 to 3.55 million in 2001.

[2] 3D printers are a low cost variation of additive fabrication technology that is easier to use, less expensive to operate, and office friendly. 3D printers drive the demand for additive systems and materials.

 [3] Reviews and reports on new rapid prototyping techniques and the latest development in 3D printers.

[4] Analyst of the market for rapid prototyping and the effect of the introduction of the 3D printer.

[5] Study of cost of rapid prototypes with the introduction of the 3D printer.

Body:

3Dimensional printers have altered the abilities of engineers and offer technological advancements in the broad field.

[7] Tissue engineering technology is the future solution for the organ transplantation crisis.  Assembly of vascularized 3D soft organs remains a challenge. Organ printing, defined as computer-aided, jet-based 3D tissue-engineering of living human organs, offers a possible solution. A cell printer that can print gels, single cells and cell aggregates has been developed. Layer-by-layer sequentially placed and solidified thin layers of a thermo-reversible gel could serve as ‘printing paper’. Combination of an engineering approach with the developmental biology concept of embryonic tissue fluidity enables the creation of a new rapid prototyping 3D organ printing technology, which will dramatically accelerate and optimize tissue and organ assembly.

[8] Rapid prototyping (RP) techniques have been utilized by tissue engineers to produce three-dimensional (3D) porous scaffolds. RP technologies allow the design and fabrication of complex scaffold geometries with a fully interconnected pore network. Three-dimensional printing (3DP) technique was used to fabricate scaffolds with a novel micro- and macro-architecture.

[9] Maturation of some areas of application. The advancements in multiple fields.

[10] The development of the new field of organism manufacturing engineering. OME aims to construct live tissues and organs through controlled assembly of 3D cell structure with the principles and methods of modern manufacturing science and life science.

[11] Reconstruction of archeological discoveries as illustrative models. Process of reverse engineering and part fabrication using additive manufacturing technologies.

[12] Rapid prototyping used to make gears with complex profiles in order to study the contact area of gears. RP utilized to form many models and determine the dynamic mating area of gearbozes.

[13] novel method to design and fabricate aeroelastic wing models for wind tunnel tests based on stereolithography (SL). This method can ensure the structural similarity of both external and internal structures between models and prototypes.

[14] Develop a systematic method that can minimize joint clearance for non-assembly mechanism fabrication using a layer-based fabrication technology.

[17] Rapid prototyping and solid freeform fabrication, is widely used by engineers and industrial designers, to make physical prototypes, enabling them to visualise and test new design proposals. 3D printing can also be used by surgeons, to produce patient-specific anatomical models based on medical scan

data, to assist them in planning complex surgical procedures, and by archeologists and museums, to produce replicas of historic artifacts

Body:

            The process of rapid prototyping using 3D printers has become not only a tool for advancement in industry and engineering; but also, it has impacted the art community and their technique and forms.

[15] Observations and speculations on the future of RP in art.

[16] By merging a range of digital and physical media, the architectural design process is enriched by different perceptions, comprehensions and conceptions of spatial volumes within both physical and virtual environments. The use of digital media often confines the design process to only the digital realm. These different media transformed the design process from a tangible portrayal of architectural design to a virtual portrayal, and vice versa. With this interchanging and crossing over of design environments from reality to virtuality the limits of each one are dismantled, both realms can be brought together in an overall process that led to alternative form findings and resulting designs.

[17] Technologies are also increasingly being employed by practitioners

in the creative arts, to realise one-off and limited edition art and design artifacts, including works of sculpture, ceramics and jewellery. practical case study, focusing on a recent collaboration by the authors, in which 3D printing was exploited in the creative realisation of an artwork.

[18] three-year Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project into the use of Digital Fabrication techniques in the area of Art/Craft ceramics. The research project has developed a methodology for the 3D printing of ceramics by replacing the proprietary powder in a commercially available powder/binder 3D printer system with a specially formulated ceramic powder. This process has been shown to be a viable procedure for translating 3D computer generated models in to physical ceramic forms that can then be fired and further processed. Allows artists and crafts persons to investigate and implement ideas and concepts that were unattainable by conventional forming methods

Works Cited

[1] Wohlers T., Wohlers Report 2002. 2002. Wohlers Associates Inc.

[2] Wohlers T., Virtual and rapid manufacturing. 2008. Wohlers Associates Inc. Pub: Taylor & Francis Group.

[3] Anna Kochan, (2000) "Rapid prototyping gains speed, volume and precision", Assembly Automation, Vol. 20 Iss: 4, pp.295 – 299

[4] Anna Kochan, (1997) "Rapid prototyping trends", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 3 Iss: 4, pp.150 – 152

[5]  Mello C., Martins R., Parra B., Pamplona E., Salgado E., Seguso R., (2010) "Systematic proposal to calculate price ofprototypes manufactured through rapid prototyping an FDM 3D printer in a university lab", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 16 Iss: 6, pp.411 – 416

[6] General Principles. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing#Modeling> (Need to find a better source for this information)

[7] Erratum: Organ printing, computer-aided jet-based 3D tissue engineering Trends in Biotechnology, Volume 22, Issue 6, June 2004, Page 265

[8] Scaffold development using 3D printing with a starch-based polymer. C.X.F Lam^a, X.M Mo^a, S.H Teoh^a, D.W Hutmacher. Materials Science and Engineering: C. Volume 20, Issues 1–2, 31 May 2002, Pages 49–56

[9] Charles Hull, Michael Feygin, Yehudah Baron, Roy Sanders, Emanuel Sachs, Allan Lightman, Terry Wohlers, (1995) "Rapid prototyping: current technology and future potential", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 1 Iss: 1, pp.11 – 19

[10] Zhuo Xiong, Yongnian Yan, Renji Zhang, Xiaohong Wang, (2005) "Organism manufacturing engineering based on rapid prototyping principles", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 11 Iss: 3, pp.160 – 166

[11] Shwe P. Soe, Daniel R. Eyers, Toby Jones, Nigel Nayling, (2012) "Additive manufacturing for archaeological reconstruction of a medieval ship", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 18 Iss: 6, pp.443 – 450

[12] Mariusz Sobolak, Grzegorz Budzik, (2008) "Experimental method of tooth contact analysis (TCA) with rapid prototyping (RP) use", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 14 Iss: 4, pp.197 - 201

[13] Weijun Zhu, Dichen Li, Zhengyu Zhang, Ke Ren, Xinglei Zhao, Dangguo Yang, Wei Zhang, Yan Sun, Yiping Tang, (2011) "Design and fabrication of stereolithography-based aeroelastic wing models", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 17 Iss: 4, pp.298 – 307

[14] Yonghua Chen, Chen Zhezheng, (2011) "Joint analysis in rapid fabrication of non-assembly mechanisms", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 17 Iss: 6, pp.408 - 417

[15] Michael Rees, (1999) "Rapid prototyping and art", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 5 Iss: 4, pp.154 - 167

[16] Multi Science Publishing. Built Environmant, Architectural Theory. Volume 2, No. 4, Dec. 2004. Pg. 476-490.

[17] 3D Printing for Artists: Research and creative practice. Walters P., Davies K. University of the West of England, Bristol, UK.

[18] Huson, D. (2010) The digital fabrication of ceramics by 3D powder printing. NIP26: International Conference on Digital Printing Technologies and Digital Fabrication 2010, 26. pp. 545-548.

 

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