A few days ago I posted about being part of a class for teachers and educators where we build a 3D printer and learn to use it and the keep it to use with our students and teachers.
Today we were given the entire 3-4 hours to just get back to work assembling our printers. The group all retrieved their boxed printers and got to it.
BELOW: What I got done the 1st week:
BELOW: Most of what still needs to be assembled.
This printer is mostly made from wood. Wood that has been laser cut into parts … VERY precisely. The burning involved in laser cutting is betrayed by the black edges of the parts as you break them apart during assembly, as well as a hint of burning wood in the room and our somewhat blackened fingertips. Lots of screws and nuts, washers, gears and more are involved.
We got to a certain point today and the next step meant we had to get the 5 electric motors required:
As we assembled the frame, which involved installing the first motor, the shape of the printer emerged.
When we ran out of time today we had a few more parts assembled and ready to add.
By that point we had also installed the second motor.
As pieces are snapped out of the laser cut wood lots of these little pieces fall out … are they all unnecessary? Or ??? Deciding keeps you on your toes.
That’s as far as we got today and it might be 2 weeks before I get a chance to work on it some more. We’re told it could be 20 hours of work when tweaking all the settings and getting software setup and all … after today we were about 7 hours in.
BELOW: The printer they assembled to check out the assembly process was busy today printing out gears for a transmission (note the image on the computer):
Here’s a short video of the printer in action – click the link.
Learning is messy!