By LISA SIMPSON STRANGE
Glasgow Daily Times
GLASGOW — Students in JR Dakin’s engineering class at Glasgow High School have a powerful new instructional aid to help them learn how to design their projects.
Dakin received a rapid prototyping machine or three-dimensional printer (UPrint) two weeks ago with funding through the help of an area industry, the school and the district, and with a state grant.
The new printer, which resembles a cross between an oversized microwave and a mini refrigerator, can build a three-dimensional prototype from any design that a student creates on the computer. Once the design is complete, it is sent to the printer, which uses spools of ABS plastic to lay down thin layers that are heated and melt one on top of another to build up the piece.
Filler plastic or pressed starch is used to support different parts of the piece while it cools and then the filler is removed with a solution of water and sodium hydroxide.
“The idea here is you can actually build a 3-D prototype, check it out and have it in your hand to see if it’s going to work,” Dakin said. “So the kids are now able to come up with an idea, design it on a computer, do a 3-D model on a CAD system (computer-aided drafting) and then they can send it over to this 3-D printer to make an actual model of it to see if it’s going to work.”
Spencer Carter, one of Dakin’s students, was checking the progress of a model of an arbor press on Tuesday that had been designed on the computer and was being fabricated piece by piece in the printer. He, along with several other classmates, have been trying out the new equipment over the past few days.
“We got the printer last week. We’ve really been busy. I’ve had kids come in after school – before school. They’re just so excited to be able to see something go from a concept to reality right before their eyes,” Dakin said. “There have been kids who have never been in my classes come down just to check it out – check out our latest technology.”
Dakin was able to purchase the new prototyping machine after Dart Container Corporation in Horse Cave awarded him a $5,000 grant to help pay for the printer. GHS Principal Kelly Bell gave Dakin $1,000 out of high school funds and a Project Lead the Way grant that he applied for from the state was also part of the money used to purchase the equipment.
He said former superintendent Kathy Goff was instrumental in securing the rest of the resources for the 3-D printer.
The very first piece Dakin and his students fabricated was an adjustable wrench. They have since moved on to more complex designs. The arbor press the students were making Tuesday was comprised of multiple parts that had to fit together perfectly in order for the final piece to work properly.
“They build each one of these parts separately (on the computer). They have to use geometric constraints to put it together,” Dakin said.
It’s all about teaching students how the individual pieces will work in conjunction with one another.
“This particular machine (the arbor press) just pushes parts together. It’s made up of a bunch of different parts and with this printer we’re making the parts to see how they interact,” he said. “So now I can teach them how things go together – how they fit. They can understand parts have to have a certain tolerance in order to function.”
Steve Fye, a chemical engineer at Span Tech, another local industry, was also in the classroom Tuesday. The two men have worked together in the past on different problems, according to Dakin. Their latest collaboration with the new 3-D printer has resulted in the production of a prototype to be used on the plant’s conveyor belt system.
“We’ve worked together on several projects. He even wrote a letter to Dart supporting the grant trying to help us to get it,” Dakin said. “I told (him) if there was anything we could help them with to give me a call, so he did.”
Fye sent the engineering teacher a computer file for the production of a body to a guide rail bracket for the facility’s conveyor belt system.
“This is a part they use on their conveyor system,” Dakin said as he held up a white, cylindrical piece of plastic with internal and external projections, openings and grooves. “And the students were able to send it to the machine and we created the prototype for him. Now they’ve tested it and it works and so they’re going to be making these for their conveyor system.”
Although Dakin and the engineer had worked on other efforts in the past, this was new territory for the two.
“This is the first time we’ve had him do a rapid prototype for us. He’s previously worked with us on some projects involving some tooling and clamps,” Fye said.
One of the past joint endeavors resulted in a chain brake tool that Span Tech uses to this day. The tool is specifically for use on the company’s chain and no other industry has the exact same tool.
“We did this several years ago,” Dakin said while holding the blue clamp-like tool. “We had some really good kids and they were getting tired of doing drawings out of books. I asked Steve if he had something in mind they could work on and he said, ‘Yeah, I’ve got something,’ and low and behold here we come up with something they’re actually going to use all the time.”
What makes the 3-D printer so special, according to Dakin and Fye, is that it gives students the ability to make things that cannot be fabricated otherwise.
“You can make things with this machine you can’t make any other way – that it’s not possible to make,” Dakin said.
One example he gave was a prototype of a Geneva wheel the students had designed.
“It simulates constant rotational movement and then you have momentary rotation on the other device. This is something you would see in clocks and watches,” Dakin said.
Fye agreed that this printer will allow for applications that would be impossible to complete with other equipment, but the scope of its use is limited by cost factors.
“It can make things that are physically impossible to manufacture and that’s the truth. The problem is it’s not very cost effective at all. It’s good for a part that you only need to have one of or a very few of because of the cost and the time — it’s only good for a one-off part.
“This part (the Geneva wheel molded from a single piece of material) simply cannot be made by current manufacturing processes. It just can’t. It’s impossible. There are features that are too intricate and too small that other machines can’t do it. The only way to make a part like this is to have it molded out of plastic, but the expense of doing that through manufacturing is astronomical. It’s thousands of dollars to have a tool made that would make this part out of plastic, but with this printer you can just have it done instantly. It’s great.”
When asked if he had extra funding for the plastic used in the fabrication process or how much it would cost going forward, Dakin said he wasn’t sure of the expense, but that he had an idea of how to pay for the plastic the students will use in their designs.
“I don’t know yet. It’s not going to be cheap,” he said. “One thing I’m hoping to do to keep the material going is perhaps some of the industries, if we could prototype parts for them, that they could chip in and buy the plastic for us – build partnerships with some of our industry partners.”
Fye added that is something Span Tech already does.
“We currently have Western Kentucky do our prototypes for us and we kind of have the same situation with them. We pay for their materials,” he said.
Getting to see real-world applications of this new design process will be another advantage for Dakin’s students.
“They get to see the manufacturing end of it – why they need to have prototypes,” he said. “I can print them out and say, ‘Look, this doesn’t fit.’ They get to see errors in their designs and they can go back and fix them. That’s why they call them prototypes.”
And in the real world, design errors in industry can be expensive propositions to make.
“You have a tool you spend $10,000 on and realize you have to change it. It’s not pretty. It’s much cheaper to find mistakes early on,” Fye said.
With all the different applications the 3-D printer will allow, the most important one is the educational advantage the students will gain.
“The great thing is my students actually get to hold something in their hand – something they designed on the computer. That really is a transfer of knowledge,” Dakin said.
