Author Archives: sbustamante

3d Printing on Campus and Across the Curriculum

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The NERCOMP group that did the 3D printing workshop was exceptional. (Norwood, Massachusetts. Workshop held on 6/10/15.)

  • Bryan Alexander, President, Bryan Alexander Consulting
  • Ian Roy, Research Technology Project Lead, Brandeis University
  • John Eberhart, Director of Digital Media, Yale School of Architecture

In addition to the speakers, there were a few very knowledgeable attendees.

Here are some of the highlights from the workshop. The information below doesn’t go into specific workflows, and is incomplete in terms of the steps I didn’t include, as this is just an overview.

Types of Printers:
Those who have a lot of experience with 3D printers said:

  • Makerbot is showing signs of slowing their innovation, and although their newer printers are much better than the earlier generations, they are not recommended for those getting into the 3D printing arena.  (In a recent tweet from Nercomp, Bryan Alexander reported “A lot of skepticism about Makerbot’s future…”.)
  • Recommended printers: Lulzbot Taz, Printrbot, Makergear, Ultimaker2.

Things to note about the printers:

  • They can be noisy.
  • They can smell odd when printing.
  • Some use different types of materials to print with (Plastics and/or powder, and more.  ABS, PLA, Nylon were all mentioned.), other printers are more limited.
  • They have products to recycle plastic to be used in 3D printing.  These are called filabot reclaimers.
  • Other costs might include the Smart Extruder if you have a Makerbot, and print heads.

Working with Printers: Software

  • 90% of person time will be spent creating the model to be printed.
  • The file type that needs to be added to the printer is a .stl.
  • Some .stl files are available at http://www.thingiverse.com/, but as a “representational tool” or “design tool” (Terms used by John Eberhart from Yale), you need to use a program like CAD, Maya, or Sketchup.
  • Some use Sketchup, but that has some limitations, and many think to use it because it was free, but they now have started to charge for its use.
  • Among many other things, Brandeis is using 123D Catch (App for droid and iPhone to create a 3d image using a cell phone.) along with TinkerCad. (A web based program that allows for adjustments to be made to uploaded .stl files.)
  • Printing can be additive, and subtractive.  (Additive is creating by adding material bit by bit.  Subtractive is taking a solid, and taking away material to reveal the object. )

Marketing and Outreach:

  • Faculty need to be approached in a variety of ways
  • Some departments that have been early adopters included archaeology, classical studies, history, theater (building sets for plays), engineering, art, math, robotics, media studies, business, psychology, engineering, etc.
  • Some opportunities exist in outreach with the community. Maybe looking for volunteers from those who have retired, but want to look at using their skills with this new techology.

Speakers

Brandeis: Ian Roy

  • Staffing at Brandeis includes 1 FTE, and 4+ students.
  • Much funding was obtained from the student organizations, and sponsors.
  • The students have a very active club.
  • 3D printing is part of the larger MakerLab at Brandeis.
  • The Maker Lab has their own room.
  • They require that people get certified on the machine before they can work on a project.
  • They don’t charge for the use of the printers, and consider a project with a good educational justification as the currency.
  • Ian Roy at Brandeis said 3D printing is as disruptive as the internet. It will change the way we do things.

Yale: John Eberhart

  • Yale has a long history with 3D printing in their Architecture department. Going back to 1999.
  • Yale charges for print jobs.
  • Newer printers dropped prices dramatically. An item that would have cost students over $200 was reproduced at a cost of $24 with the new printers
  • As the cost of printing went down, the numbers of print jobs, and printers went up. 2012-13 they had 2 printers and did 50 jobs.  2013-14 they had 18 printers and did 2,500 jobs.  2014-15 they had 31 printers and did 5,100 jobs.
  • The print jobs are happening in a printer farm, which pretty much runs non-stop.   The printers are locked up, but visible through glass, and students will often look to see what others are doing.  This may encourage further exploration, and generate new ideas.
  • The newer 3D printers became very popular at Yale because the rendering was quicker and less expensive than other printers, and the quality was good enough for the job at hand.

Some apps and suggested pages

I should taken pictures of the prosthetic arms and leg they had created, but I just got a picture of these skulls. In the background is Ian Roy from Brandeis, sporting the frames he printed off of the 3D printer.

3dPrinting

Computers in Libraries 2015, Washington DC

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"Libraries need to be co-creators of the community’s goals and dreams."

In the spirit of one of the sessions I attended, I will make this personal.   Not all of the conference take-a-ways can be defined by the conference program, or even found in the videos that appear on the conference webpage after the fact.  To be sure, the content of the sessions were interesting and often brought about things that I hadn’t anticipated being important, but the conversations between sessions, and at dinner were just as important as the content of the sessions.

Most useful sessions for me:

Customer Development M.J. D’Elia, Head, Learning & Curriculum Support, McLaughlin Library, University of Guelph.  M.J. presented a model based on techniques of startup companies.  In this model, assumptions of the service provider are tested as users give valuable information, either directly, or indirectly, that identifies their real needs.  This model helps to set expectations at the beginning, and to get valuable insight from early adopters.  It allows service providers to keep an eye open for indicators of  success from the customer’s perspective, making pivots in different directions easier when off track, and allows managers to better support growth based on the results of evaluations.  Asking the right questions is key.  One question might be; “Were there enough computers?”  A follow up question might be; “How important was that to your satisfaction of the service?”  The slideshow from that session can be found here.  (This has already been something I have used for the video editing training service that we will be offering in WB and GH.)
http://www.slideshare.net/mjdelia/intro-to-customer-development-for-libraries
http://conferences.infotoday.com/documents/219/D201_DElia.pdf

Impact Measures Moe Hosseini-Ara, Director, Markham Public Library.  Moe talked a great deal about connecting to the operational, and strategic goals of the larger organization.  He also talked about making the statistics relevant to these goals, and in using statistics to tell a story that is both representative of the work, and meaningful.  The goal is to collect and communicate the right statistics, which also means not collecting statistics that are no longer working toward the changing goals of the organization.  (This will be useful for the video editing training service that we will be offering in WB and GH.)
http://s.uconn.edu/moelogicmodel

Video Streaming Tips & Learnings Marcus Ladd, Special Collections Digital Librarian, Miami University Elias Tzoc, Digital Initiatives Librarian, Miami University.  The presenters talked about Kaltura http://corp.kaltura.com/   Pointed to an article, admittedly dated, called “Video use and Higher Education” http://s.uconn.edu/videouseandhighered  (This talk was useful to the video editing training service that we will be offering in WB and GH.)

Community Librarian… Shelley Archibald Community Librarian, Technology Burlington Public Library.  Shelley talked about engaging diverse groups in community building.  She wrote, “Libraries need to be co-creators of the community’s goals and dreams.”  (This gave me some ideas to enhance a class I plan on teaching with the OLLI program in Waterbury Spring 2016.)

Storytelling: Diane Cordell, Consultant and Writer, CyberSmart Education Company.  (This gave me some ideas to enhance a class I plan on teaching for the OLLI program in Waterbury Spring 2016.)

Other Good Stuff:

Search tips: by Mary Ellen Bates, Bates Information Services, Inc.
http://conferences.infotoday.com/documents/219/A101_Bates.pdf

Building Community Partnerships: Melissa Christakos, Coordinator of Reference Services, Chesapeake Public Library.  Melissa got me thinking about how to use a Memorandum of Understanding.  (This has already been something I have used for the video editing training service that we will be offering in WB and GH.)

I attended other presentations on metrics, and a few on webapps that were quite informative, and provided many links.  Look for those in the links to the presentations below.   I’ll look through some of my other notes, and will post a reply here if there is anything else that really stood out as noteworthy.

Links to many CIL presentations:

http://computersinlibraries.infotoday.com/2015/Presentations.aspx
http://www.librarysummit.com/DC2015/Presentations.aspx