Chances are you had no idea OSSM has 3D printers. Honestly speaking, I didn’t know about them either until a few months ago. Thus, out of curiosity, I sat down with Dr. Underwood, who is currently housing the 3D printers in his lab, to get some more information about the 3D printers.
If you didn’t know about the 3D printers, don’t worry about it because they’re pretty new. GE and OCAST (Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology) donated one of the printers a couple of years ago while an alumni donated the other one just a year ago.
Fun Fact: The 3D printers work at around 180 degrees Celsius.
OSSM currently has two identical 3D printers on campus; both printers are Makerbot Replicators (Makerbot is the company and replicator is the model). They can both be used with almost any CAD program because Makerbot has a built in translation program that reads CAD files and generates a readable file for the Makerbot printers.
You can either create your own CAD design to print off or use an already pre-designed program. A great place to look for already created designs is Thing-a-verse because you can get almost anything you want from that website. While there are other 3D design websites, most of them are more specific in the focus of the designs such just IPhone cases or just robotics parts.
Tip: When 3D designing, be careful not to create an object with long stretches of unsupported plastic like a hollow cube. Gravity gets in the way and causes the plastic to curve in on the flat top, which isn’t desirable (unless if you’re going for that aesthetic. No judgment.).
3D printers work by melting down plastic filament to create a new object. The filaments used by the Makerbot are PLA filaments, which is the standard for 3D printers. It’s unlikely that other types of filaments work with the Makerbot (although that hasn’t been tested and Dr. Underwood has requested that people don’t try to test it). The filaments are packaged curled up in wide spools and can come in a variety of colors, and the colors available at OSSM are white, green, blue, and orange.
The filaments that are currently accessible were purchased by the OSSM robotics team but can be used by everyone. However, there is no specific budget for the filaments so when the filaments are used up, you would need to provide your own filaments. A single spool of filament is about a kilogram in weight and costs around $50. The filaments can be purchased off a variety of online websites but the best places to get them are from Amazon or from the Makerbot website.
Fun Fact: There are several 3D printed objects outside of Mrs. Chappell’s office desk. One of them is interlocking gears that can rotate.
Now that you’re all excited about the 3D printers, the big question arrives: who can use the printers? The answer is any OSSM student or faculty member! But there is a caveat. The printers can only be used for legitimate school projects. Anyone intending on using the 3D printers needs to be responsible and make sure not to blow through the entire spool of filament for fun. If you want access to the 3D printers, you must first contact Dr. Underwood to receive permission.
Aside from that, let your creativity flow and have fun developing diverse designs with the 3D printers!