Tag Archives: academia

Object Scholar Package Brings 3D Printing to Students and Universities

Objet Scholar Package 3D Printing

3D printer manufacturer Objet Ltd. has announced the release of an accessible, attractively-priced and all-inclusive 3D printing package for schools, colleges, universities and institutes of higher education, called the Objet30 Scholar Package.

Here is the full press release:

“The Objet30 Scholar Package was developed to make Objet’s 3D printing systems and solutions even more accessible to the strategically important education market,” says Gilad Gans, Executive Vice President for Objet. “It provides students and faculties across multiple disciplines – particularly STEM curriculum studies – with increased opportunities to create and prototype advanced design ideas.”

Tailor-made 3D printing solutions for the education market are a strategic objective of Objet. The company’s 3D Printers have been adopted by many of the world’s leading universities and research departments, including Virginia Tech, University of New Orleans, Art Center College of Design, Purdue University, and The Technion.

The package was designed with educators in mind allowing academic institutions to focus on creativity. It includes the Objet30 Scholar professional desktop 3D Printer; two or three year supply of rigid opaque 3D printing materials (Objet RGD240 rigid blue and support material) which Objet will store and deliver on-demand; a desktop Water-Jet system to remove the support material; training for users; maintenance of the 3D Printer; and technical support. Objet30 Scholar customers are also entitled to further discounted 3D printing material re-fill packages.

The Objet30 Scholar provides 28 micron layer accuracy and the material features high-detail visualization for simulating the precise look of standard plastic products. As well as giving students the ability to develop a 3D printing project portfolio, the Objet30 Scholar package provides graduates and post-graduates with valuable knowledge and experience that can help support future design and manufacturing careers in Fortune 500 companies that operate similar professional 3D printing systems.

About the Objet30 Scholar Package

  • Ultra-high resolution accuracy, typically 0.1 mm (0.0039 inch)
  • Produces models with smooth surfaces, fine details & moving parts
  • Suitable for small spaces, offices and desktop operation
  • Can be used with all types of 3D CAD software
  • Tray Size (X×Y×Z) 300x200x150mm (11.81×7.87×5.9 inches)

Package Benefits

  • A one-time package for 2 or 3 years
  • No material storage headaches
  • On-demand materials, delivered when needed
  • High resolution 3D printing for simulating the precise look of students’ intended end product

To find out more about the Objet Scholar Package, contact us at info@objet.com, or visit our Education website.

University Professor Mark Ganter on Home Brew Printing Medium (Video)

Mark Ganter 3D Printing

Mark Ganter is a professor of mechanical engineering at UW. He loves 3D printing. He has machine #25 from ZCorp and has been doing this longer than these students have been alive. He is the co-director of the open3dp (Open 3D Printing) organization. And he thinks that 3D printing will cross academic boundaries, as we recently reported.

In the video below, Professor Ganter talks about a home brew printing medium for 3D printing.

3D Printing Crosses Academic Boundaries at Universities

3D Printing at Universities

3D printing has historically been seen as a tool for engineers and designers to rapidly prototype. Now the technology is crossing academic boundaries at universities and being adopted by various disciplines.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on this trend.

Colleges and universities are finding more and more uses for 3-D-printing technology, which has grown in sophistication and fallen in price in recent years. Some proponents argue that nearly every discipline could benefit from the ability to easily create objects from customized designs. “We want this for humanities, for social sciences, for bio people, for law school, so what’s interesting about 3-D printing is that it touches on all these areas,” says Hod Lipson, a professor of mechanical engineering and of computing and information science at Cornell University, who is creating a 3-D-printing course for nonengineers.

What are some examples of students using 3D printing across disciplines? 

Art: “When an art student at the University of Washington wanted to bring her vision of a futuristic animal to life last semester, she didn’t draw, paint, or sculpt it. She printed it—in three dimensions—using a machine that rendered her design from powdered bone.”

Medical: “Consider the work of Brandon Bowman, 28, a former blacksmith who is now studying at Washington. He is working with a hand surgeon to see if the technology can print body parts. Years ago Mr. Bowman lost the tip of a finger in a metal-shop accident. A friend told him to leave the wound alone and let the nub of flesh grow back on its own. It did, and he has been interested in regenerative medicine ever since.”

Paleontology: ’Kenneth Lacovara, a biologist at Drexel University uses the campus lab to print copies of dinosaur fossils, which he lets his students handle. “I can only have so many undergraduates in my lab, but I can give thousands of students the experience of what it’s like to hold a dinosaur bone and see the richness of detail contained in an ancient fossil,” says the associate professor. His students can’t go on the actual digs, but the printer has helped him replicate the experience.’

How far can 3D printing go?

University of Washington mechanical engineering professor Mark Ganter thinks that 3D printing will continue to proliferate.

“With 3-D printers, they’re either going to get to the ubiquity of Kinko’s, or lots of people are going to have them in their house,” he says.

Mr. Ganter sees 3D printing as a way to hook younger students on engineering fields. This year his class printed 8,000 edible cookies for an engineering open house for visiting junior-high and high-school students. They were more excited by the printed cookies than by anything else, he says.

The Washington professor’s students have also used the technology to print a device for NASA that, when sent into outer space, would store fuel in zero gravity. If institutions can develop early interest in engineering, and maintain sufficient access for kids to nurture this interest, he says, “soon we are going to try to figure out how to print on the moon.”

 

Read the full article at Chronicle of Higher Education.

Students 3D Printing photo by cogdogblog used under Creative Commons license.