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For this month’s first edition of 3D Printing News Briefs, we’re starting with some 3D printing education news, then moving on to business and an aerospace industry announcement. MakerBot technology is being used in every school in a single New Jersey school district, while Praxair has introduced an additive manufacturing grant for North American universities. ITERATE was awarded an Innovate UK grant for an advanced 3D printing technology collaboration, and Techniplas will expand its additive manufacturing capabilities through a partnership with DWS-Digital Wax Systems. 3D Printhuset is hosting a large 3D printing construction conference later this month, and Sintavia has achieved an important industry certification. Finally, Orbital ATK had a successful test for its rocket with 3D printed components.
MakerBot Desktop 3D Printers Deployed Throughout Montclair Public School District
Back in 2015, MakerBot and the Montclair, New Jersey school district formed a partnership in order to set up the very first district-wide network of desktop 3D printers. There are 11 individual K-12 schools in the district and 6,625 students, so implementing lots of new, specialized technology was certainly not an easy task to undertake. But the district was committed to making sure its students, from elementary to high school, would graduate with 3D printing knowledge, and MakerBot built the industry’s first supported education solutions based on this need. Two years later, MakerBot and the Montclair school district discussed the impact that the 3D printing network is having on its students.
Dr. Joseph Putrino, Glenfield Middle School's principal, said, “We brought in MakerBot to provide consistency and continuity for the program. Reliability was obviously a big factor, we didn't want to bring something in that would fail '“ but we knew we'd be successful with MakerBot.”
Montclair educators make use of Thingiverse Education lesson plans, along with the recently released MakerBot Educators Guidebook. Additionally, the district’s STEM coordinator Daniel Taylor, who works at Buzz Aldrin Middle School in Montclair, offers support for all of the users and printers in the district.
Praxair Offering Additive Manufacturing Grants to North American Universities
Top industrial gas company Praxair announced that it will offer a limited number of in-kind additive manufacturing grants, through Praxair Surface Technologies (PST), to select North American universities. PST’s TruForm metal AM powder will be provided to grant recipients, along with consultations, material testing, and engineering assistance from PST to support metal AM courses and projects. You can fill out the grant application form here – applications will be accepted through December 31st, 2017, and recipients will be notified by February 28th, 2018.
“Each day, more and more universities are incorporating metal additive manufacturing courses into their curricula. We want to support growth in additive manufacturing projects within the academic community and believe that these grants will provide many new opportunities for students and teachers alike,” said Andy Shives, business manager for Additive Manufacturing at PST.
ITERATE Awarded Innovate UK Grant for Collaborative Research Project
Speaking of grants, design engineering company ITERATE has been awarded an Innovate UK grant to work on advancing 3D printing technology in a £1 million collaborative research project between Printed Electronics Ltd, the University of Warwick, and C Enterprise (UK) Ltd (CEL), makers of the CEL Robox. During the 18-month project, the partners will work to combine electrically conductive inks with a polymer-based materials deposition process, which could mean that wires would no longer be needed for electro-mechanical product assemblies. ITERATE will also be looking to work with product end users and manufacturers that could benefit from the new AM process.
“There are no machines on the market that accurately and reliably combine these two dissimilar materials to create production-grade results,” said Gethin Roberts, Managing Director at ITERATE. “Current 3D print technology is based on a Cartesian co-ordinate system (X,Y,Z), depositing one layer of material on top of another in a single plane to create a 3D object. This method has inherent limitations that affect surface finish, geometric tolerance and robustness. This project will overcome these challenges so that industry can cost effectively develop new products across an exciting array of market sectors '“ spanning military to healthcare.”
Techniplas Announces Partnership with DWS-Digital Wax Systems
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