Luke
The 3D Printer History-
The
3D printer that VelcroSat is using was originally an IEEE club project. The IEEE club bought the components and built
the 3D printer. After the printer was
successfully built IEEE then tried to utilize it within their club to make
models for other projects. Unfortunately
the members of IEEE spent six unsuccessful months trying to get the printer to
print successfully. Justin Hunter
(VelcroSat President) heard that IEEE was having trouble with the printer and
volunteered to try and fix it. He tried
many of the same things that the members of IEEE had already tried and figured
out that the software was not configured correctly. He then did research into the software the
printer uses. He learned some base
configurations to start from and what to change to improve its printing
capabilities. The next step for was
trial and error to find the right set of configurations to have a successful
print. Luke Snyder helped Justin with this
task. Luke helped by using a 3D drawing
program to draw up simple objects like a hollow cylinder for the printer to try
and print with Justin’s configuration.
After a few tries they found a configuration that worked. The configuration can be used not only for
the simple cylinder but for more complex objects as well. Justin also made a user guide for the printer
so more people would be able to use the printer.
Plans for the 3D printer- VelcroSat plans on using the 3D
printer to make mounts for different sensors and equipment that the club is
testing. The printer has already been
used to successfully make a mount for an ultrasonic sensor being attached to a
robot designed to sense and intercept a ball rolling on the ground.
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ReplyDeleteJust to update the history-- from day 0 the 3D printer was a joint buy by IEEE, VelcroSat, and Model Rockets. It was always intended to be a shared resource. IEEE got the fun of building it-- in fact, we decided to buy the kit rather than the pre-made because IEEE wanted to build and there's a lot more learning involved in build than buy. The rest of the history is accurate.
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