Author: Queenie Chow

Pilot Concluded – Stay Tuned!

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We ran this pilot as an experiment to determine if and how we can offer 3d printing to the OSU community reliably, affordably, efficiently, and sustainably. How much does it cost to keep the printers supplied? How often do the printers malfunction? How closely can we predict when a job will be finished? What is the demand, and how many printers are needed to keep up? What should staff be trained to do? What should users be expected to know or do? How is providing this resource contributing to our academic mission?

At this point, the Digital Union’s 3D Printing pilot has officially concluded, and we are excited to see the overwhelming amount of interest and demand. Over the course of 3 months, nearly 800 submissions from over 300 users, wow! A lot of you have asked if 3D printing will be back, and whether it will still be free, and well…that’s part of what we will be spending the next few weeks figuring out.

Note to our users: 3D printing has been suspended while we take a hiatus to assess our results. If you’ve received a message that your print job is ready for pickup, please stop by to retrieve your items. Thanks for participating in our pilot, and we look forward to sharing our results with you here in a few weeks!

Last Call!

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Since the start of our pilot on January 12, we have received over 700 submissions. We can’t print them all, so we have been prioritizing to produce as many varied pieces as possible. The last day of our pilot is this Monday, March 16th, so this is your last chance to submit a project to be printed or tell us how it went!

flowersVaseEven if we are not able to get to your submission, we are happy to see your entries come in! It’s useful for us to see exactly what the demand at OSU looks like in terms of how many people want to use 3d printing, what for, what maintenance is needed for the printers, average cost of supplies, and how to structure such a service to efficiently produce quality prints. Thanks for taking this journey with us, and stay tuned! We’ll be crunching all the data and sharing our results and recommendations with senior leaders at the university to determine if and how 3d printing will be offered going forward.

The piece pictured here is our accidental art piece, “Flowers & Vase.” Flowers made from extruded PLA filament, a byproduct of loading a new cartridge; vase made from an aborted print job.

Ohio State’s offer of free 3-D builds big following

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*Thanks to Collin Binkley for interviewing us and writing/sharing this article about the DU3D printing pilot in the Columbus Dispatch!

Two smiling Digital Union student workers examine a 3d model on a computer screen.

This semester, Ohio State University bought two 3-D printers and spread a message across campus: For two months, students can make whatever they want on the printers for free. Continue reading →

Happy 1 Month Anniversary!

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Our 3D Printing Pilot began one one month from today, on January 12th, and we have already amassed over 500 submissions! We’re thrilled that you’re thrilled! Due to the massive demand, we are currently prioritizing submissions for work, research, or class use. We are also interested in any submissions that look particularly innovative, creative, inventive, useful, and important. Think less on the scale of trinkets, decorations, and Block-O’s….we want to help you make things like prototypes, prosthetics, creative solutions, teaching/research tools, and art!

2 blue half circles pictured on a soft white background. The two pieces have complimentary openings that lock together.

Holder for use in development of a production version of a camera filter adapter.

Each object can take anywhere from 1 hour to 2 days to print, depending on the size, complexity, and infill. Our end date for accepting submissions is March 16th, after which we will examine information from your submissions, staff and technicians’ assessments, and discussions with other 3d printing experts across the university. A report will be made based on our research to determine if and how we may continue to offer 3D printing broadly, effectively, and sustainably here at OSU.

Digital Union Offers Free 3-D Printing in Pilot Program

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Find us in the Lantern! Thanks to student journalist, Robert Scarpanito for this article and photo.Red 3D print of Block-O next to a 3d rendering of the object on a computer screen
Students looking for a way to combine their technological and creative skills now have the means to do so using free three-dimensional printing services offered at two Digital Union locations on campus.

Three-dimensional printers are now housed in the Digital Union locations at Enarson Classroom 012 and Prior Hall 460a, and can be used by all students, staff and faculty, regardless of department affiliation, for no cost. Continue reading →

Makerbot’s in Milimeters

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Hoping to save new modelers some grief with this troubleshooting tip from Makerbot Support:

Sometimes the intended size of an object can get lost in translation between your design software and slicing. Our software expects units to be set to millimeters, so make sure that your modeling software is also set for millimeters. If you open an STL or OBJ in MakerBot Desktop and it appears to be much too small, click the Scale button twice to open the Change Dimensions submenu and click Inches > mm to resize your object.

Your Smartphone is Now a Microscope

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One of our testers just printed an attachment meant to turn your smartphone into a microscope!Two halves of an iPhone 5s case printed in green PLA. Makerbot logo, red M inside a red circle, in the background.It snaps onto an iPhone 5s, and with the addition of a common, inexpensive glass bead, can magnify up to 1000x. Unfortunately, it won’t fit over his screen protector, but he can use one of the 3d modeling programs installed on Digital Union computers to modify the dimensions and try again. Click here to read the full article, and download one to print for yourself!