Printing the Future
For the past 11 years, students at LHS
have had the privilege of using 3D printers
to enhance their education, and use real-life
skills to learn what it is like to be an engi-
neer.
At LHS, there are four technology
classes: freshmen take electronics, soph-
omores take engineering design, juniors,
principles of engineering, and seniors,
engineering design and development, the
class in which students actually make things
with the 3D printer.
Here at the high school, there
are three 3D printers, two located
in room 002 and one in room 017.
The first 3D printer purchased for
LHS cost around $30,000, and has
been around for 11 years,” said Mr.
Andrew Thomson, an applied tech-
nology teacher.
“The printer we purchased
11 years ago is on its last legs. It’s
getting old, they don’t last very long,
and we’ve been good about keeping
it up. But to fix it right now is going
to cost around $4,000. 3D printers
have dropped in price so much; the
new one we are getting is around
$6,500, does the exact same stuff as
the other one, but it’s not as big,”
said Mr. Thomson. “The other [print-
er] cost about $1,500, and of course
doesn't do the same stuff as the first
printer, not as much detail.”
The new printer, manufactured
by Stratasys, one of the leading
producers in 3D printers, is called
the Mojo, described as a “little pow-
erhouse” that is the most compact,
accessible way to get professional
desktop 3D printing, according to A chess piece created using the 3D printer at LHS.
Stratasys’ official website. Earlier this
month, the new printer was deliev-
ered to the high school.
Students in the engineering design
and development class, run by Mr. Thom-
son, have the capability to use the two print- steel or even aluminum. You need a mold
ers. “What the students do is they develop
a problem. Then, they design a product to
find a solution for that problem,” said Mr.
Thomson.
After students have found a product
they’d like to construct, they have to design
a mold on the computer to create the shape
of the object they're trying to produce. The
3D printer then reads the digital file and
slices the model into hundreds of thousands
By Maria Thames
of horizontal layers. Once the file has been
downloaded onto the printer, it creates it
into a three-dimensional object, layer by
layer.
Injection molding, the shaping of rubber
or plastic articles by heating material into
a mold, is how the students at LHS make
various products. “Say I want to make a
cap, it’s made out of plastic. So you make
half a mold and the other half has a hole in
it, so the mold shoots plastic inside of it and
when it cools, you open it up, and you’ve
Photo by Maria Thames Motors did it because they could.
got that (the cap),” explained Mr. Thomson.
“When you’re doing injection molding,
you’re going to make a part out of plastic or
made that you injected that melted material
into it, and you open that mold and the part
comes out.”
In the past, students at LHS have made
all different kinds of useful objects, such as
chess pieces, flashlights, filters, phone cases
to hold credit cards and money, and a pen
with sharpie and marker all in one.
“We had to entirely redesign a car,
all the individual axles and wheels and the
DROPS OF INK 5
treads for the tires. We had to make our
own dimensions and sketches from our own
work, and then we individually made the
parts and assembled them together. As far
as the parts, they had already been pre-made
virtually,” explained principles of engi-
neering student, Tyler LaRoi, a junior who
designed a car on the 3D printer computer
software. “All those files can be used to
print something. So if you took the gear you
wanted, you just more or less send it to the
printer.”
In more national 3D print-
ing news, on Sept. 8-13, at the
International Manufacturing
Technology Show in Chicago,
Local Motors made history by
3D printing a car in a total of just
44 hours. Constructed from car-
bon-fiber reinforced polymer, the
same plastic as Legos, the Strati
can drive up to 40 MPH and has
about 40 parts, compared to the
traditional 20,000 parts found in
a regular car.
“I’m interested to see
where they can go with it because
they’ve come such a long way
with it in such a short amount
of time. I know there’s printers
that make food. The prices have
dropped a lot so I think a lot of
more things will be coming out
that you’re going to see,” said
Mr. Thomson.
On the contrary, others may
not think the 3D car is all that it
seems to be.
“To me, it’s like Local
The way 3D printing is used now
is that it’s more prototyping than a
final product. You can’t just print a
car and assume that it’s capable of handling
road conditions. It’s like they did it to prove
they can make a statement,” voiced LaRoi.
While opinions vary when it pertains
to the 3D printing of the Strati, here at LHS,
the printers are used for the benefit of the
students.
“What I enjoy most about 3D
printing is what it allows my students to do.
Never could they do that before. Now they
can design something and print it out and
actually have a physical form of it in their
hands, which is pretty amazing to me,” said
Mr. Thomson.