Last week, more than 100 students, faculty, and staff came together to celebrate the arrival of autumn at Wayne College’s Fall Fest! Attendees enjoyed a variety of carnival games, earning Zippy Bucks that could be redeemed for Wayne College merch and other fun prizes at the Zippy Bucks Store. One of the biggest crowd favorites was the caramel apple bar, which kept everyone coming back for a sweet taste of fall. It was a wonderful day filled with fun, laughter, and campus community spirit!
Assistant Lecturer Kelsey Hunt is the Maternal-Newborn Course Lead here at The University of Akron Wayne College. She recently asked the 3D Lab to reproduce life-size models of human organs as visual aids for her class. Kelsey found models on www.makerworld.com, a popular 3D printing repository with millions of downloadable items.
She selected a prenatal infant and a pelvic bone from this website. Printing these models life-size is no small matter, each took 24-36 hours to print! Our Prusa XL 3D printer was up to the task, having a 14” cubed build area. This high-end consumer printer is meant for large/long prints such as thermal sensors, filament runout & crash detection, and more. The models printed without a hitch and Kelsey is thrilled with them! They cost about $12-13 each in filament, quite affordable.
We’ve added new capabilities to the 3D Lab! We now have paperworking machines and services to our students, staff, and general public. Need to fold paper into brochures or booklets? Our electric paper folding machines makes up to five custom folds automatically. Our bookbinding machine cuts slots in stacks of paper, then mounts the papers into a plastic “comb” binder. We also offer copy & print services at reasonable cost. Check-out everything you can make in the 3D Lab in the attached document. Click here for a complete list of equipment in our lab.
Our friends at the Apple Creek Historical Society Makerspace is really hopping with class offerings open-to-the-public. There are upcoming classes for learning a wood lathe, CNC routing, laser engraving, 3D printing, and more. These classes are often project based, so you make something to take home! ACHSMS also hosts a general meeting every second Monday for help with just about anything. Attached is a current list of upcoming classes!
Lab staff Carter and Garrett created an interesting project with our new paperworking equipment: custom notebooks! The front cover was created with pictures converted to outlines with CorelDRAW, a vector art program. The vector art was imported to a CAD program for conversion to a 3D model. This was loaded into the 3D printing software (PrusaSlicer) to be “painted” multiple colors, then printed on our Prusa XL printer.
Not wanting a boring back cover, Carter and Garrett created a 3D printable, textured relief from a photo using HueForge. This program blends a handful 3D printer filaments to a myriad of colors for just about any 3D printer! A blank back cover with cavity was 3D printed with the relief glued into it. And lastly, we used the bookbinding machine to cut slots in A5 paper then bound everything together with a plastic comb. The result is quite nice and will make a great gift!
Stay tuned next month as we reveal more interesting things happening in the Wayne College 3D Lab!
Until then,
Tom
Scientists Turn Plastic Waste Into Edible Cookies
https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/08/30/0456255/scientists-turn-plastic-waste-into-edible-cookies
3D Print Yourself These Mini Workshop Tools
https://hackaday.com/2024/09/06/3d-print-yourself-these-mini-workshop-tools/
Please click below for information about their Maker Monday general meeting in October.https://www.schantzmakerspace.com/events
Wood Lathe – Beginners Class (Tuesdays starting October 13-27)
CNC Router Sign Making (October 28)Click here for more information
We offer a free “listserv” that allows to you ask questions to members in the makerspace. It’s great for sharing ideas, forming friendships, and helping & advising each other. To join, send an email to listserv@lists.uakron.edu with “SUBSCRIBE MAKERSPACE-GROUP” in the subject line.
]]>The Spring semester came to a close last week, culminating with a Celebration of Graduates event honoring students who recently completed their degrees through the Wayne campus. More than 150 students, family members, staff, and special guests attended the graduation event on May 4th—the highest attendance since before the pandemic.
Even though spring classes are finished, there is plenty happening at Wayne College! Everyone is welcome at the Wayne College Library for its summer activities including board games, movies, book clubs, even a used book sale in August! Attached is a schedule of events. Click to learn more.
In the 3D Lab, students recently used the solvent ink printer and heat press to make cute t-shirts for a bachelorette party. The decals were created from JPG photos, backgrounds removed using free, online websites. The photos were printed on matte heat press vinyl and were rather large, though they look beautiful and shiny when heated pressed onto shirts. Vinyl decals allow full-color graphics, though it makes the shirts stiffer with larger logos. Direct-to-fabric (DTF) printing allows the shirt to flex more.
A community member experimented with heat pressing vinyl decals onto jeans for her daughter’s birthday party. Even with the thicker clothing, the vinyl fused into the fabric well, making a permanent bond that will hold-up to many washings! The daughter was thrilled. ?
Earlier this year, the local YMCA hosted an event that needed a souvenir, a custom poker chip with their logo on it. Instead of designing a 3D model from scratch (which can require moderate CAD skills), we converted a JPG the logo to an SVG “vector” file (a mathematical way to display an image) using Adobe’s free conversion tool. We converted the “flat” SVG file into a 3D printable model using SVG2Solid, another free online tool.
We found a blank poker chip design on Thingverse, then used the 3D printer’s slicer software to combine the chip and logo 3D models, colored them, then printed! The result turned out great. While a somewhat complicated solution, it was certainly something that anyone can do with a bit of patience and creativity.
Gabriel, one of our students, involved himself with another complicated 3D printing project that spanned two semesters. He 3D printed two large, articulated models of the popular Metroid video games. This was no small feat as each figure required many 3D printed parts, some of which did not fit well to each other, requiring resizing and modifying part designs. Some of the parts where printed in TPU (rubber) filament for flexibility, while nail polish was applied to stiffen joints for adjustable poses.
As you can see, the finished figures are fantastic! It’s a perfect example of hard work and perseverance that is a quality of many of our students.
Stay tuned next month as we reveal more interesting things happening in the Wayne College 3D Lab!
Until then,
Tom
3-D Printing of Baby’s Heart Guides Surgery
https://www.vagelos.columbia.edu/about-us/columbia-medicine-magazine/archives/spring-summer-2015/clinical-advances/3-d-printing-babys-heart-guides-surgery
3D Printed Toys: 25 Great 3D Prints for Kids
https://all3dp.com/2/3d-printed-toys-distract-kids/
Join us for our next Maker Monday meeting on Monday, May 18, 2026, from 7:00–9:00 PM at the Romich MakerSpace, 13875 Cleveland Road, Creston, Ohio 44217. This month’s featured program will highlight the Triway Robotics program.
Wood Lathe – Beginners Class (May 19, 2026)
Woodworking Club (May 28, 2026)Click here for more information
We offer a free “listserv” that allows to you ask questions to members in the makerspace. It’s great for sharing ideas, forming friendships, and helping & advising each other. To join, send an email to listserv@lists.uakron.edu with “SUBSCRIBE MAKERSPACE-GROUP” in the subject line.
]]>Finals Week is over! Congratulations to all of our students who finished exams and can look forward to a peaceful, beautiful, snow covered Winter Break. We ended the semester with a “fiesta” of activities including holiday craftmaking, wonderful food at MARRs Café, karaoke, a door decorating contest, and more!
Earlier this month, young community members from a local homeschool group visited the 3D Lab to learn digital fabrication and express their creativity! Lab staff Carter helped them create designs in Corel DRAW which were laser engraved onto balsawood bookmarks. They also learned the button press to make custom pin-on buttons and the solvent ink printer to make die cut stickers. Everyone had a great time and discovered how easy it is to make something beautiful!
Each year, budding engineers take the Tools For Engineering class where they learn free-hand, engineering, and CAD drawing; computer programming, computer applications, and engineering economics. But the most exciting part is the robot challenges! Student build custom robots using LEGO Mindstorms to accomplish goals, such as pick and place, the notorious stair climbing challenge, and most importantly, the Battle Bots tournament at the end of semester!
The creativity and engineering that went into this year’s tournament was quite a treat. One robot flung a whip while another other used spinning orbs to knock an opponent off-balance. One finalist (top-left photo, top robot) was built like a tank and flipped over opponents with hooked arm. The winning design (bottom right) had the best combination of size and mobility with an intimidating plow that pushed anything in its path! Congratulations to Gabriel for winning this year’s tournament!
Back in the 3D Lab, staff members Jeanette and Wendy had a great idea: make festive Wayne College sweatshirts and t-shirts! Wendy made an attractive holiday themed Wayne College design with Adobe PhotoShop while Jeanette learned how to print full-color vinyl t-shirt decals on the solvent ink printer.
Solvent ink technology differs from traditional inkjet in that the permanent ink fuses to the surface of material, whereas the latter is water based and soaks into it. This means a variety of material can be printed onto. For instance, we experimented printing the holiday design onto glitter vinyl which was especially pretty!
That’s a wrap for 2025! The 3D Lab will be ready in 2026 with a fresh set of stories, projects, and creative people! We look forward to welcoming students back for Spring semester in January! Enjoy the holidays!
Stay tuned next month as we reveal more interesting things happening in the Wayne College 3D Lab!
Until then,
Tom
Starbucks Opens Its First 3D-Printed Store
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/04/27/2041226/starbucks-opens-its-first-3d-printed-store
3D Print Christmas: 15 Last-Minute Cookie Cutters You Can Make Now
https://all3dp.com/2/3d-printed-cookie-cutters-christmas/
3D printer build class at Wayne County Public Library
(January 17, 2026)Click here for more information
Laser engraving class
(January 14, 2026)Click here for more information
We offer a free “listserv” that allows to you ask questions to members in the makerspace. It’s great for sharing ideas, forming friendships, and helping & advising each other. To join, send an email to listserv@lists.uakron.edu with “SUBSCRIBE MAKERSPACE-GROUP” in the subject line.
]]>The Fall season is in full swing here at The University of Akron Wayne College. Make a point to visit the grounds, enjoy the walking path along Wagstaff Way, and the see colorful rural Fall foliage! Our maples are spectacular this year.
HalloWayne at Wayne College is a wrap! Our costumed student and staff enjoyed a scavenger hunt card, solved riddles, went trick or treating, and carved pumpkins!
As end of semester draws near in December, Tools for Engineering students prepare for two challenging assignments: building robots that climb stairs and compete in the Battles Bots tournament. The former is particularly challenging as few robots can climb an entire flight of stairs. This leads to interesting, aspiring designs! Robots are built from LEGO Mindstorms kits.
Wayne College Arboretum and Nature Trail Renovation
The Wayne College Arboretum and Nature Trail is a great way to enjoy the outdoors and learn more about the plants and trees in the area. The trail is an almost half-mile, paved trail with an arboretum area that includes more than two dozen species of trees and shrubs that are native or live in similar environments to northeast Ohio. In the spring of the year, more than 100 wildflowers of more than 10 species bloom along the trail.
We need your help!
We are in the process of restoring the Nature Trail. Trees indigenous to this area were identified along the trail with wooden posts, but many have deteriorated and/or lost to time. Would you help us identify these trees?
Here is a link to pictures of each tree (and its’ leaves). Simply reply to this email with comments such as “Tree E is a beechwood tree” or something like that.
To view thumbnails of the photos, please click the Grid Layout icon in the top-right corner.
Renovation includes replacing the deteriorating signage and plant identifications with laser engraved, stainless steel & brass signage, performed in-house and at area makerspaces. Truly a “maker” project! Please see attached PDF for more information.
Volunteer Opportunity for Local Makers
Do you enjoy innovation, design, and inspiring the next generation of creators? Consider being a judge at the Roller Coast RoboClash VIQRC Elementary School Tournament on Saturday, December 20, 2025, at the Cedar Point Sports Center in Sandusky, Ohio. This event brings together dozens of young robotics teams from across the region as they showcase their creativity, problem-solving, and engineering skills through the VEX IQ Robotics Competition.
If you’d like to volunteer or learn more, please email Craig Wentworth at cwentworth@imountie.org and he will connect you with our Judge Advisor. Please see attached PDF for more information. Note, this is a community event (not University of Akron sponsored).
Stay tuned next month as we reveal more interesting things happening in the Wayne College 3D Lab!
Until then,
Tom
Scientists Develop ‘Glue Gun’ That 3D Prints Bone Grafts Directly Onto Fractures
https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/09/27/2157219/scientists-develop-glue-gun-that-3d-prints-bone-grafts-directly-onto-fractures
The Best 3D Printed Christmas Ornaments & Décor
https://all3dp.com/2/3d-printed-christmas-decorations
Click here for upcoming events.
November 10th – Make it Monday monthly meeting. Click here for a calendar of events.
We offer a free “listserv” that allows to you ask questions to members in the makerspace. It’s great for sharing ideas, forming friendships, and helping & advising each other. To join, send an email to listserv@lists.uakron.edu with “SUBSCRIBE MAKERSPACE-GROUP” in the subject line.
]]>The start of fall semester brought a flurry of excitement and anticipation. Almost four weeks since, Wayne College is bustling with students with many new faces gracing our halls. Plenty of activities, too, from our popular Welcome to Wayne Day welcoming event to the many student (and community!) activities offered by the Wayne College Library. Stop-by some evening for trivia & board games, book club, movies, and D&D sessions! You are bound to make new friends at Wayne College.
While you’re here, visit the Wayne College 3D Lab to make some cool stuff for yourself, friends, or community groups that you are involved with. Look-over the list of possibilities and stop-over during our open lab hours.
Community member Jacob (a.k.a. “Luigi”) frequents the 3D Lab to create “cosplay” Mario Bros. props using 3D printing. He designs props himself using Tinkercad, a free browser based app by AutoDesk.
Jacob is currenting revamping a vacuum cleaner to the likes of the “Poltergust 5000” from Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon videogame. The idea was to build a cosplay prop in appearance only until the instructors at his local library posed a special question: “What if it we made it work?” With 3D printing, he printed a myriad of pieces from multicolor structured pieces for aesthetic applications to soft TPU adapter pieces for motor safety and use.
With traditional tools and digital equipment available for students or visitors like Jacob, who knows how far anyone can go with their ideas? With the Wayne College3D Lab, he can make the immaterial material and turn concepts into reality.
Alumni Nathan visited the 3D Lab to create a reusable stat board for the cooperative board game Kingdom Death Monster. This game normally uses paper sheets to record player stats during gameplay. Nathan purchased erasable whiteboard from a local hardware store, then designed a stat chart using Inkscape, a vector design program. The chart was printed & cut onto vinyl sticker material using the 3D Lab’s solvent ink printer, exposing areas of the whiteboard to be erased during gameplay. Now he has four custom-made, reusable gameboards!
The Apple Creek Maker Space is a collaborative workspace inside the Apple Creek Historical Society for making, learning, exploring, and sharing ideas. They are well equipped to teach and support people of all ages, skills in woodworking, 3D printing, CNC Laser, and associated computer programs. The Society opened its Maker Space to the community so you can work on your favorite project. You are also welcome to just come and take a tour of their Maker Space.
Apple Creek Makerspace has upcoming classes that you may find interesting. The schedule of classes is attached. Check-out these classes:
- Cutting Board Sept. 30
- Wood Lathe – Beginners Oct. 14
- 3D Printing – Beginners Oct. 15
- Laser Engraving Oct. 22
- Beginner Woodworking Oct. 29
- Adirondack Chair Nov. 4
- 3D CAD – Basics Nov. 18
- General meetings every 2nd Monday of the month
For more information, contact the Maker Space at achsmaker@gmail.com
Stay tuned next month as we reveal more interesting things happening in the Wayne College 3D Lab!
Until then,
Tom
Top Companies Building 3D Printed Houses
https://all3dp.com/2/best-companies-building-3d-printed-houses
This School 3D Prints Violins at Just $50 Each, so Every Kid Can Play — Here’s Howhttps://all3dp.com/4/this-school-3d-prints-violins-at-just-50-each-so-every-kid-can-play-heres-how
October 18th – 3D Printer Build Class at Wayne County Public Library. Click here to learn more.
September 30th – Cutting Board Class at Apple Creek Historical Society.
We offer a free “listserv” that allows to you ask questions to members in the makerspace. It’s great for sharing ideas, forming friendships, and helping & advising each other. To join, send an email to listserv@lists.uakron.edu with “SUBSCRIBE MAKERSPACE-GROUP” in the subject line.
]]>It’s hard to believe that summer is drawing to a close and Fall semester begins in a little over a month here at Wayne College! Maintenance staff have been busy beautifying and improving the campus, especially with a collage of varied flowers and flowering bushes throughout the campus. Feel free to stop-by for lunch at MARRs Café on Tuesdays & Thursdays or check-out summer activities happening in the Library!
While you’re here, visit the Wayne College 3D Lab to make some cool stuff for yourself, friends, or community groups that you are involved with. Attached is a list of possibilities and our lab hours are listed here.
If you haven’t used the laser engraver in the 3D Lab, you’re missing out on an easy-to-use, rewarding experience! An engraver burns precise areas from many surfaces to reveal text, graphics, and even photos! Check-out the engraved glass, wood, painted metal, and leather items that we have made. It’s a great way to customize a gift or make something completely original!
Another popular machine at the Wayne College 3D Lab is the Roland GX-24 vinyl cutter. It is similar to a Cricut found in many homes, but can cut designs up to 24” wide! The vinyl cutter can make single-color, non-fading stickers that are stuck to surfaces or heat pressed onto clothing. Complicated cuts are covered with a sticky “masking” material that transfers the design onto a surface.
Below, a community member creates logos and bumper stickers in the 3D Lab for the 501st Legion, an international costuming organization dedicated to celebrating STAR WARS
through the creation and use of quality costumes that portray the villainous, morally ambiguous, or non-partisan characters from the STAR WARS universe. The 3D Lab services everyone, even those from the Dark Side! ?
The Applecreek Historical Society Maker Space is offering a special event on Tuesday, July 22nd at 4:00 p.m. Guest Speaker Mike Buss will demonstrate how laser machines can be used in teaching and creative projects. Join him live on YouTube if you are available! Click here to join the livestream that day
A dedicated volunteer and experienced OMTech user, Mike has been teaching laser and CNC classes for four years at the Apple Creek Historical Society Maker Space. Since retiring from a career in product development, he’s been helping others master OMTech machines through hands-on learning and community workshops.
Stay tuned next month as we reveal more interesting things happening the 3D Lab!
Until then,
Tom
Study Finds 3D Printing to Repair Aging Bridges Could Save Billions And Keep Traffic Flowing
https://all3dp.com/4/study-finds-3d-printing-to-repair-aging-bridges-could-save-billions-and-keep-traffic-flowing
It’s Surprisingly Easy To Make Cookie Cutters!https://all3dp.com/2/how-to-3d-print-cookie-cutters
July 21st – live demo of the Sainsmart Genmitsu 3018 CNC router and comparing CNC engraving to using a laser attachment. Click here to learn more.
Make-it Monday: 2nd Monday of each Month 6:oo-8:00 pm. They opened their Maker Space to the community so you can work on your favorite project or take a tour. Click here for more information.
We offer a free “listserv” that allows to you ask questions to members in the makerspace. It’s great for sharing ideas, forming friendships, and helping & advising each other. To join, send an email to listserv@lists.uakron.edu with “SUBSCRIBE MAKERSPACE-GROUP” in the subject line.
]]>The damp, cool weather of Spring has turned to warm, sunny days here at Wayne College. Our campus is quite beautiful this time of year with flowering annuals, bushes, trees, farmlands, and woods. Come visit the College via the walking path along Wagstaff Way and have lunch at MARRs Café! And while you’re here, visit the Wayne College 3D Lab to make some cool stuff for yourself, friends, or community groups that you are involved with. Attached is a list of possibilities and our lab hours are listed here.
Over the Spring semester, student Gabriel has been a regular visitor in our lab, creating some interesting (and sometimes very complex) projects! Did you know that you can make full-color t-shirt decals in the 3D Lab? You bring the shirt; we help with the rest. Our solvent ink printer prints color images onto white vinyl that is heat pressed onto fabric. Gabriel made this detailed design a couple of weeks ago:
Gabriel really got into 3D printing, starting with small model tanks to a fairly large robot with many interlocking, complex pieces! He mastered the technique of combining disparate filaments as support material which makes for easy removal.
This is a model of an E.M.M.I robot from the game Metroid Dread. It is made and held together almost entirely using 3D printed parts, with glue only being used to adhere the knuckles, spine, and legs in place.
Most of the problems Gabriel encountered had to do with the pins that held the pieces together. They would always be slightly bigger than he wanted. The creator of the model said that he couldn’t make the pins any smaller or the printer would be unable to print them, so for many of the pins Gabriel had to brute-force them in, however, that strategy didn’t work when he got to the neck, where the pins would keep a gap in between each neck piece. To solve this, Gabriel reduced the size of the pins by 5% which did make them fit, even if he had to print them multiple times due to failures.
In total the model is made up of 75 individual pieces.
If you love 3D printing and want to “up your game”, check-out this excellent article at All3DP.com! It is a complete 3D printing troubleshooting guide, including many common FDM 3D printing problems and solutions, tips, and tricks to fix them. Why doesn’t your part stick to the bed while printing? What do I get wavy marks on my objects? How do I cleared a clogged nozzle? You will certainly learn something new from this excellent guide no matter what your experience level.
Some of our community members and students enjoy making custom bookmarks with laser engraving and 3D printing. Community member Dale cut these custom designs out of various species of wood, some quite exotic. He made the designs with Adobe Illustrator and bought thin wood veneers from online retailers. The result is quite beautiful!
Did you know that you can make multi-color, textured bookmarks on your own 3D printer? HueForge is an inexpensive program that uses ordinary 3D printers to make multi-color prints. It relies on applying filament in thin layers, allowing translucent blending of color beneath it. This creates many shades of color from relatively few filaments! Learn how do it here.
The Apple Creek Historical Society Makerspace is selling their large CNC router (built by Schantz Makerspace) for $550. They also have an Ortur Laser Master 2 Pro laser with a full enclosure selling for $350. If you are interested in these machines, please contact Mike Buss at msbuss@sssnet.com
Stay tuned next month as we reveal more interesting things happening the 3D Lab!
Until then,
Tom
If You Want An Expensive Chair Just Print Your Own
https://hackaday.com/2024/07/10/if-you-want-an-expensive-chair-just-print-your-own/
10 Must-Print 3D Tabletop Games That Will Level Up Your Game Nighthttps://us.polymaker.com/blogs/design-print-ideas/3d-printable-tabletop-games
August 30th 3D Printer Build at Lodi Family Center. Once more you can immerse yourself in the world of 3D printing with a workshop aimed at enthusiasts and supervised youth. Click here to learn more.
Make-it Monday: 2nd Monday of each Month 6:oo-8:00 pm. We opened our Maker Space to the community so you can work on your favorite project or take a tour. Click here for more information.
We offer a free “listserv” that allows to you ask questions to members in the makerspace. It’s great for sharing ideas, forming friendships, and helping & advising each other. To join, send an email to listserv@lists.uakron.edu with “SUBSCRIBE MAKERSPACE-GROUP” in the subject line.
]]>With two more weeks of classes before Finals Week, the Spring semester is finishing up like a gust of wind, just like Ohio weather lately! There have been lots of activities at Wayne College lately, including an Easter Egg Hunt and lots of student and community-welcome activities offered at the Wayne College Library! Want to know more, just contact the library!
Brett Lanz of Tri-County Educational Service Center announces an upcoming event, the 2025 Tri-County ESC STEAM Camp! In conjunction with the Wayne County Schools Career Center, Schantz Makerspace, and Wayne County Children’s STEAM PLaylab, it is an engaging multi-day camp designed for students in grades 3-8. Throughout the course of this camp, students will learn principles of design and engineering to create a remote powered robot using a VEX IQ kit. Students will work and collaborate safely to complete challenges testing students’ designs, engineering, and skill.
This event is being held at the RAMTech Lab at the Wayne County Schools Career Center in Smithville during July and August.
Volunteers are needed! If interested, the attached flyer shows dates/times/location. Training would be provided but the basic function is to assist students as needed for their VEX building. If you are willing and available, please complete this form. If you needed any kind of verification for volunteer hours/experience, Brett would be happy to provide that.
Our staff and students at the Wayne College 3D Lab enjoy experimenting with new ways of making things! Staff member Cait tried a special type of 3D printing called “vase mode” to print large, hollow objects quickly. In this case, a Oddish-styled, Pokémon themed planter!
Vase mode is 3D printer setting where it creates a single continuous spiral structure without any infill or top/bottom layers. Instead of printing solid layers, the printer follows a continuous path, resulting in a hollow object with a single wall thickness. This printing technique allows for the creation of vases, bowls, cups, and other objects with a seamless and elegant appearance.
Gabriel, one of our students, tried a new technique that surprised us, heat pressed vinyl into leather! We didn’t know if that was possible, but after enough Internet research he decided to give it a go. The result was spectacular! The vinyl strongly bonded to the leather and the colors and fine details were sharp.
Gabriel used our Roland GX-20 vinyl cutter and heat press for the job. He downloading the bitmap graphics, converted them to “vector” format, then cut the stars and rooster separately. These were pressed for only 15 seconds at 300 degrees, just enough to let the vinyl bond to the leather with damaging the latter. Great job!
Students from our Integrated Expressive Arts in Primary Grade class had a blast in the 3D Lab earlier this week. Makerspaces and education are perfect for each other, especially when teaching and learning STEAM! Aspiring teachers learned about digital fabrication that evening, engraving images onto acrylic with the laser engraver, 3D printing fidget toys, using Canva to design & print large posters, and die-cut stickers with our solvent ink printer! Everyone enjoyed “making” together and will be back with more ideas!
Stay tuned next month as we reveal more interesting things happening the 3D Lab!
Until then,
Tom
Inside the World’s Largest 3D-Printed Neighborhood In Texas
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/07/28/2111239/inside-the-worlds-largest-3d-printed-neighborhood-in-texas
The 40 Best 3D Printed Chess Sets & Boardshttps://all3dp.com/2/3d-printed-chess-set-pieces
Their next meeting is Monday, April 21st and includes Greg Short who is building an airplane with support from the Romich Makerspace. They will also have a discussion with Jennifer Winkler about her contacts with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame museum! Click here to learn more.
What is 3D printing? How does it work? These questions and more will be answered in this introductory class. You will work on a basic 3D printer(supplied) learning how to set up, print and do basic troubleshooting of problems. Thursday, April 24th, 6:00pm – 8:00pm. Click here for more information!
| We offer a free “listserv” that allows to you ask questions to members in the makerspace. It’s great for sharing ideas, forming friendships, and helping & advising each other. To join, send an email to listserv@lists.uakron.edu with “SUBSCRIBE MAKERSPACE-GROUP” in the subject line. |
The Spring semester is flying by this year! Already halfway through the semester, students have been busy with midterm exams and projects. Spring is just around the corner, yet today’s blistery cold wind and snow took us by surprise!
This week was also our Disability & Mental Health Awareness event. Students learned something new about what it’s like to have a disability that interferes with learning and everyday functioning. In our personal and work lives, we all run into someone who is differently-abled than ourselves. This was a great opportunity to learn and develop empathy in a fun and relaxed environment.
Feel free to stop-by the 3D Lab to learn 3D printing and make stickers, buttons, and laser engraved gifts. We show you how to use the equipment; you make the stuff! Please click here for a list of things you can create in the 3D Lab. To plan a visit, please let us know the day & time of your arrival via tjh1@uakron.edu or 330-684-8722 so that we have staff available. People under the age of 18 need to be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Our hours of operation are listed here.
If you’re a maker with experience in metalworking, soldering, reading engineering drawings, and have an excellent attention to detail, Schantz Organ Company in Orrville would like to hear from you. They have a position available for a pipemaker. Please read the attached position summary for details!
Community member Laura and a friend visited the 3D Lab to engrave rough-cut wood planed into kitchen cutting boards. Lab staff Carter assisted them with operating the laser engraver for the correct power and speed to match the wood, resulting in a dark, deepened image. Engraving is a great way to personalize gifts!
Laura is very creative in the lab; she purchased engravable mugs that have a thin colored coating that can be lasered away to reveal the core color underneath to making attractive custom mugs!
Staff member Jenna had a great idea to commemorate a loved one, a photo plaque with a high-tech surprise! Next to the photo is a sticker made with our solvent-ink printer containing a QR code. When a viewer snaps the code with their phone, they hear a sample of the person speaking! The audio was uploaded as a YouTube video, the URL of which converted to a QR code. This idea would work with audio with video, too. Great work, Jenna!
For the past couple of weeks, staff member Wendy and lab staff Cait worked on transferring artwork to blank mouse pads using the lab’s dye sublimation printer.
The first mousepads came out too vibrant and more blue than green. They learned that “color mode” in PhotoShop is important to reproduce accurate color. “RGB” mode is best when the destination is a computer screen that use different intensities of colored light. But when outputting to printers that use ink, “CMYK” color mode is best as color is defined by layering of physical ink. They also learned that different printer & ink brands have variations of ink colors, so a “color profile” (aka ICC profile) for our ink was used. After those were figured out, the mousepads came out beautifully and with accurate color!
The Fall semester is at a close and winter break is here! We’ve had snow (now melted), but need a bit more for Christmas. Merry Christmas from all of us in the Wayne College family!
Feel free to stop-by the 3D Lab on Tuesday & Wednesday, December 17 & 18 to learn 3D printing and make stickers, buttons, and laser engraved gifts. We show you how to use the equipment; you make the stuff! Why buy pre-made Christmas gifts when you can make your own? Handmade gifts are original, personalized, and have sentimental value; they also are a gift to the maker simply by the joy of creating something new! After the 18th, the lab is closed until January 2nd.
To plan a visit, please let us know the day & time of your arrival via tjh1@uakron.edu or 330-684-8722 so that we have staff available. People under the age of 18 need to be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Our hours of operation are listed here.
Staff member Jeanette learned the laser engraver to make enchanting night lights as gifts for friends & family. At over $6 each, these nightlights are easy and fun to make! Jeanette created black and white designs in Canva, then saved them as PNG to allow for a transparent background. These were loaded into CorelDRAW, a vector art program. Cutting lines were added to give the acrylic plates different shapes with the artwork in the middle. The laser engraver burns the image first, giving it a frosted glass look. Then the laser cuts the desired overall shape around it. The result is stunning!
Dave and Mani from ST Engineering Hackey, Inc. in Kidron found our large-format 3D printer helpful with creating prototype corner castings for delivery trucks. This proof-of-concept model expedited the revision process and allowed them to prove-out the design. These corner pieces reinforce the joints at the rear of the trailer, protecting them from loading/unloading damage.
The corner casting was too large even for our Prusa XL 3D printer with a 14.7” cubed build area. We were able to “slice” the part into two sections using the included PrusaSlicer software then print them separately. Regular super glue worked well to bind the PLA sections together. As you can see, it turned out great! Dave and Mani gave us a 3D printed version of their mascot printed with tri-chromatic filament as a thank-you gift.
Community member Rachel used the 3D Lab to make Christmas gifts for her son, a t-shirt and hoodie with full-color custom decals! We printed her designs using the Roland BN2-20A solvent ink printer onto white heat-transfer vinyl. The printer also cut the designs after printing, similar to a Cricket. The tricky part was “weeding” the vinyl which means peeling away the unneeded pieces, leaving the design on the vinyl’s backing material.
After weeding, the vinyl decals were pressed onto “magic mask” material which allows the decal to transfer from the backing material to the mask, ink side facing the mask. This was placed on the shirt and hoodie, then heat pressed to make them permanent. The result looks professional! It was a bit of work, but certainly worth it.
Stay tuned next month as we reveal more interesting things happening the 3D Lab!
Until then,
Tom
For Moon Missions, Researchers Test a 3D-Printable, Waterless Concretehttps://science.slashdot.org/story/24/12/02/0534255/for-moon-missions-researchers-test-a-3d-printable-waterless-concrete
3D Print Your Own Articulated Christmas Toyshttps://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/home/articulated-christmas-toys
Maker Faire Wayne County 2024 is a wrap! Click here to see makers who participated this year.
Join us on January 11th for a one-of-a-kind experience that takes you into the heart of coding and robotics, a Robotics Arm Class! Click here to learn more.
Check-out this makerspace’s upcoming events on their monthly calendar. Click here for more information.
We offer a free “listserv” that allows to you ask questions to members in the makerspace. It’s great for sharing ideas, forming friendships, and helping & advising each other. To join, send an email to listserv@lists.uakron.edu with “SUBSCRIBE MAKERSPACE-GROUP” in the subject line.
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