3D Printing Webinar and Virtual Event Roundup, August 23, 2020

We’ve got a lot of online events and webinars to tell you about in today’s roundup, with topics ranging from safety and sustainability to AM training and industrial 3D printing.

Autodesk’s Advanced Manufacturing Summit

Tuesday, August 25th through Thursday, August 27th, Autodesk is hosting a free, global, and virtual Advanced Manufacturing Summit, featuring speakers and sessions focused on CAM, injection molding, generative design, additive manufacturing, automation, and other design and manufacturing trends. In addition to networking time and some hands-on learning sessions, and a COVID success story, there will be a keynote presentation each day.

All keynotes will take place at 11 am EDT. On the 25th, Autodesk’s Vice President of Business Strategy for Design & Manufacturing, Srinath Jonnalagadda, and Neil Briggs, founder of UK auto manufacturer BAC Mono, will discuss adapting to and overcoming the challenges posed by manufacturing in a post-COVID world. Autodesk’s Associate Vice President of Engineering, Ian Pendlebury, and Engel’s Head of Process Technologies, Dr. Johannes Kilian, will focus on data connectivity in their keynote on the 26th. Finally, Brian Betty, Ultimaker’s Director of Business Development, Autodesk’s Leanne Gluck, the Manager of Business and Industry Strategy, and Jabil’s Senior Director of Digital Manufacturing, Rush LaSelle, will talk about the role of AM in agile manufacturing. You can register for the three-day summit here.

Safe 3D Printing with Rize

Boston-based additive manufacturing company Rize will discuss safe 3D printing in a webinar at 2 pm EDT on Wednesday, August 26th. The webinar will cover several topics, such as the four stage of safe 3D printing, the company itself and its technology and materials, and the story of how the company fared working remotely during COVID-19.

“Because of our focus on overall 3D printing safety, we were able to adapt and bring our printers home as well as assist the community with the COVID PPE effort.”

You can register for the webinar here. Once you’ve registered, a confirmation email will be sent to you with information on how to join.

Sustainability in Additive Manufacturing

Also on the 26th, from 11 am to 1 pm EDT, Women in 3D Printing (Wi3DP) is hosting its next virtual panel and network event, “Sustainability in Additive Manufacturing & 3D Printing,” sponsored by Link3D. Kristin Mulherin, the Founder and Fresident of AM-Cubed, will be moderating, and the speakers will be HP’s appointed Chief Sustainability Officer Ellen Jackowski, Henkel’s Global Head of Marketing Cindy Deekitwong, and Sherry Handel, the Executive Director of the Additive Manufacturing Green Trade Association (AMTGA).

“We’ll have plenty of time for a live Q&A from the attendees, and networking before and after for an opportunity to “virtually mingle” with people from your local Wi3DP chapters and afar. With men and women participating from all over the world, join us for this global networking opportunity!”

You can register for the event here.

3DEXPERIENCE: A Virtual Journey Continues

Earlier this month, Dassault Systèmes held the first part of its 3DEXPERIENCE: A Virtual Journey, a series of digital programming which is replacing its annual 3DEXPERIENCE Forum. The journey is continuing on Wednesday, August 26th, with “Fueling Innovation for the New Agile Enterprise.” Two tracks—Collaborative Innovation and Supercharge Innovation with the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform—will be available for participants, and each one will be jam-packed with industry experts and other speakers.

“What if your organization could seamlessly connect and bring together multiple streams of data, people, and processes into one single platform?  These senior executives from Dassault Systemes will present how leading enterprises are redefining and enabling a new, more efficient way to innovate and collaborate across internal and external value networks.”

Several subject matter experts will also share how they’re finding new, more efficient ways to innovate and collaborate through their presentations. Episode 2 sessions will be available online at 9 AM ET on the 26th. You can register for 3DEXPERIENCE: A Virtual Journey here, and don’t forget to mark your calendar for the final two sessions on September 23rd and October 14th.

Additive Manufacturing Training with Tooling U-SME

On Thursday, August 27th, The Barnes Global Advisors (TBGA) is presenting an exclusive webinar with educational technology and blended learning nonprofit Tooling U-SME, called “Additive Manufacturing gets Better, Faster and Cheaper with Training!” TBGA ADDvisors Tim Simpson and Chelsea Cummings will join the company’s Founding Director John Barnes to talk about how organizations can use team-based learning to save costs and develop skills in additive manufacturing.

“One goal of AM training is to provide guidance to organizations in recognizing cost savings opportunities. To do this, engineers must begin to design with AM in mind. Without that central shift in development, AM would never make business sense. With that simple shift, it is possible to design out significant cost drivers.”

The webinar will take place at 1 pm EDT, and you can register here.

Mimaki Talks Industrial 3D Printing

This roundup’s final webinar is also on the 27th, and is the last of Mimaki‘s Live events series, which was launched in June. This free Industrial Market Edition will focus on how COVID-19 impacted the industrial and manufacturing sector, and how businesses can recover and reactivate. This exclusive live-stream event will feature several expert guest speakers, who will share with attendees how they can discover their own unique opportunities with both UV and 3D printing technologies.

The webinar will also feature a panel discussion between several of Mimaki’s industrial partners and media suppliers, in addition to opinion polls and the chance to ask questions. The webinar will go from 6-8:30 am EDT, and you can register here. You can check out the recording of the previous Mimaki Live webinar about the textile and apparel market below:

Will you attend any of these events and webinars, or have news to share about future ones? Let us know! 

The post 3D Printing Webinar and Virtual Event Roundup, August 23, 2020 appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

EU’s 3D4VET Studies Project Developing Program to Add 3D Printing Curricula to Vocational Training

3D4VET Studies (3D4VET) is a project co-funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ program that is on a mission to add 3D printing to the European Credit system for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET). The aim is to define a common competence – in this case Expert on 3D Printing – that can be applied to a variety of VET domains, and to create a corresponding learning pathway for it.

The idea, according to International R&D Projects Researcher Beatriz González del Valle from Spanish project partner INCOMA, was to develop a collaborative online training and resources platform for teachers and trainers to use.

According to the 3D4VET website, “The project mainly aims at developing innovative curricula based on the usage of new digital technology to implement in the additive manufacturing industry, in line with the priority related to open and innovative education, training and youth, imbedded in the digital era. Furthermore, the new curricula will be adapted to the ECVET point system to guarantee an easy recognition in all partner countries, thus contributing to the transparency and recognition of skills and qualifications to facilitate learning, employability and labour mobility.”

3D4VET project activities will make it possible to produce 3D printers, so that VET providers are able to create their own training equipment to use. As the website states, this will help to promote sustainable investments, high efficiency and performance in education and training, and improve the quality of the learning process for students and trainees so that they can become more employable.

The proposed curriculum developed by the project is based on the use of new digital technology which can be implemented in the AM industry. It will then be adapted to the ECVET point system so it can be easily recognized in partner countries to facilitate learning, labor mobility, and employability.

In addition to INCOMA, other project partners are the BioAvan R & D+i laboratory in Spain, the Industrijsko-obrtnička škola Slavonski Brod (IOS) secondary school in Croatia, Spanish educational center IES Antonio de Ulloa, the not-for-profit training center IFOA in Italy and Forcoop Cora Venezia Sc in Italy, and the woman-owned UK SME Inova Consultancy Ltd. Several partner meetings, in addition to a pilot testing for students and teachers, have already been carried out.

 

 

3D4VET lists three main outputs:

  1. Definition of the 3D Expert Competence – the set of knowledge and skills collected to define a “transversal competence”
  2. Development of 3D Expert Learning Pathway – this will be tested and validated in three EU countries
  3. Collaborative platform – this can be used by trainers to share learning material, expertise, and other important resources

The expected impacts of this program on students, teachers, and target groups are many, and include improved ability for entrepreneurship and knowledge acquisition, trainer capacity building and a recognized learning path, and reinforcement of workforce mobility potentials, increased implementation of 3D printing technologies, and more available learning resources. Without training the 3D Printing revolution will not have the workforce to be implemented.

3D printing is being included more frequently in curricula for vocational training around the world, so the 3D4VET project is in good company.

Discuss this story and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.

The post EU’s 3D4VET Studies Project Developing Program to Add 3D Printing Curricula to Vocational Training appeared first on 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing.

3D Print Crash Courses – Online Trainings this Summer

Summer goals: learn 3D print design with us! We have an exciting June planned with three cumulative online trainings — giving you the tools and knowledge to expand your 3D printing skills each week.

We’ll kick things off on Tuesday, June 11 with our Beginner Design for 3D Printing online one-week workshop. The course will show you how to incorporate human-centered design into your 3D print designs. We’ll work through case studies to show how design thinking is applied to 3D print modeling. Additionally, we will show you how to use CAD programs to prepare your model for print.

The interactive crash course works like this:

There will be two guest speaker livestream sessions presented over 90 minutes. Each lesson will provide key principles and case studies, followed by an interactive Q&A. All live sessions will be recorded and posted in the online classroom for on-demand access.

There is an online workshop component. In the workshop, you get an assignment to apply what you learn, which you share in a small group workshop and get feedback from an industry expert.

 

Following our Beginner class, we will have three cumulative workshops where you’ll be able to build on 3D print knowledge and skills and learn how to apply them to more advanced concepts. These courses, which follow the same format as the beginner class, are:

  • Advanced Design for 3D Printing – June 18, 2019
    • Learn how to navigate design software
    • Discover best practices for designing for plastic, resin, and sandstone 3D printing
    • Create your own design that will be submitted into a design contest. Our 3DPrint.com team will choose the winner and the design will be printed and shipped by CoKreeate.
  • Essentials of 3D Printing with Metal – June 25, 2019
    • Gain an in-depth understanding of the 3D printing in metal process from start to finish
    • Learn current technologies and use cases for 3D printing in metal
    • Discover the ins and outs of processing factors and how to achieve desired surface

Bundle the courses for discounts and have a month immersed in the 3D print world. Take one, two, or all three courses — giving you applicable 3D printing skills for your upcoming ventures.

New Speakers Added to Our Crash Courses – Last Day for Early Bird Rate for Metals Class

Make sure to check out the speaker roster for our March classes. We continue to build our programs with industry leaders in 3D printing. Our newest speaker for our Beginner Design for 3D Printing course starting March 5, Jason Slingerland, is a quality assurance engineer at Onshape, where he verifies stability and usability of Onshape products and tests sheet metal tools and standard content.

Onshape, which was recently named one of the “50 Start-Ups May Be the Next ‘Unicorns’” by The New York Times, unites modeling tools and design data management in a secure cloud workspace. In Jason’s article on the Onshape blog, “Why I Chose an Engineering Career,” Jason says after experiencing many obstacles and technology limitations in previous roles, his goal at his job is to change the negative connotation around the word CAD for engineers. We’re excited to learn more about Jason’s experience in his session, “How to Prep Your Models for Printing.”

Speaker Jason Slingerland, QA Engineer at Onshape

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More on our March Crash Courses

One-week Online Events + Workshops:

  • Beginner Design for 3D Printing – March 5, 2019
    • Session 1: Beginning Design Principles
      • Speaker: Jordan Pelovitz, Senior 3D Artist, Wayfair
    • Session 2: How to Prep Your Models for Printing
      • Speaker: Jason Slingerland, Quality Engineer, Onshape
  • Advanced Design for 3D Printing – March 12, 2019
    • Session 1: 3Developing Real Modeling Skills
      • Speaker: SelfCAD
    • Session 2: Coding/Generative Design
      • mathgrrl/Dr. Laura Taalman, Mathematician and 3D Designer
  • Essentials of 3D Printing with Metal – March 19, 2019 – Last day to register with the early bird rate!
    • Session 1: Introduction to Metal Additive Manufacturing
      • Speaker: Melanie Lang, Co-founder and Managing Director, Formalloy
    • Session 2: Design and Materials Considerations
      • Speaker: Frank Medina Ph.D., Consulting Technical Director, EWI: Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, UTEP

Guest Speaker Sessions:

  • 90 minutes of key principles, case studies, and lessons, presented in two livestream sessions with Q&A.
  • All live sessions will be recorded and posted in the online classroom for on-demand access.

Online Workshop:

  • An assignment to apply what you learn, shared in a small group workshop with feedback from an industry expert.
  • All live content will be recorded and posted in the online classroom for on-demand access.

Bundle the courses and save.

Thank you to our Beginner Design for 3D Printing and Advanced Design for 3D Printing sponsor, SelfCAD, for the support.

 

 

 

 

US Army Learning About and Using 3D Printing to Improve Military Readiness

The REF Ex Lab at Bagram Airfield produced these items after Ex Lab engineers worked with Soldiers to develop solutions to problems they encountered.

The US Army has long been putting 3D printing to good use. In an article published in the latest edition of Army AL&T Magazine, senior editor Steve Stark takes a deep dive into just how this branch of the military is using 3D printing, and what barriers stand in its way.

Stark wrote that 3D printing “is a natural fit for the Army” as the military branch works to upgrade its manufacturing technologies. Dr. Philip Perconti, director of the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL), says the technology “is at a pivotal stage in development.”

At the opening of the new Advanced Manufacturing, Materials and Processes (AMMP) manufacturing innovation center in Maryland this fall, Dr. Perconti said, “The Army wants to be at the forefront of this advancement in technology.”

Dr. Perconti believes that mobile production of various replacement parts and components is on the horizon, and he’s not wrong: the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines are already taking advantage of this application.

3D printing can be used to improve readiness, which is a fairly wide-ranging category that covers everything from buildings and repairs to logistics and sustainment. The overarching goal is to send units out with just the right amount of equipment to establish a mobile unit for on-demand 3D printing.

Mike Nikodinovski, a mechanical engineer and additive expert with the Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC), explained that various places around the Army, like its Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) and the Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC), are currently enhancing readiness, and speeding up the sustainment process, by experimenting with the 3D printing of plastic and metal parts.

“We’ve been repairing parts for the M1 Abrams. … We’ve done projects cross-Army and with the Marine Corps where we printed things like impeller fans. A lot of the things we’ve been doing are just basic one-for-one replacement,” Nikodinovski said. “What can you do with additive for a part that’s traditionally manufactured? A lot of that gets at sustainment, and that’s what we’re trying to stand up at Rock Island—give them the capabilities so they can print metal parts, especially if you want … long-term procurement for parts where you only need a couple, vendors are no longer in business and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend a lot of money to set up tooling. Can additive be used to supplement the sustainment process, where I can just, say, print three parts and save all the time it would take to find vendors or set up the tooling?”

A 3D printed 90° strain relief offset connector, which was designed and fabricated by REF engineers at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan to prevent cables from breaking when attached to a piece of equipment.

Additive manufacturing is very different from subtractive manufacturing, which means that critical training is involved.

“That’s a huge undertaking. We need to not only train the people who are going to touch and run the machines, but train the troops and the engineers on the capabilities of and how to design for AM,” explained Edward Flinn, the Director of Advanced Manufacturing at Rock Island Arsenal.

“You’ve got to train the Soldier on the capabilities of the technology along with how to actually use the machine. Then there’s how to teach the design community themselves the benefits of additive so they can start designing for it.”

Ryan Muzii, REF support engineer, cuts metal for a project.

Megan Krieger, a mechanical engineer at the Army’s Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), explained that the use of makerspaces in the MWRs (morale, welfare, and recreation facilities) at libraries is a helpful way to get military personnel more familiar with 3D printing. She explained that this way, “if people are passionate about making things, they’ll learn it a lot better than if they’re just thrown into it.”

Outside of actually learning how to use the technology, the Army is also working to develop new materials and design tools for 3D printing.

Dr. William Benard, senior campaign scientist in materials development with ARL in Maryland, said, “The Army’s near-term efforts are looking at readiness, and in research, one of the simpler things is to just design new materials that are easier to print with, more reliable to print with, [the] properties are well understood—that kind of thing as a substitute, sort of a more direct approach to support of existing parts.

“One of the areas of investment that ARL is making to support this, and I know others in the RDECOM community are looking at it as well, is, really, new design tools for additive.”

The Army also needs to determine the specific economics of adopting 3D printing. While cost is less of a factor when you’re up against a tight deadline, this reverses when manufacturing reproducibility and cost are more important in a project. Additional factors include how critical the need for the part is, how quickly developments are being made, what else depends on the particular project, and where exactly the Army is spending money.

Tim Phillis, expeditionary additive manufacturing project officer for RDECOM’s Armament Research, Development Engineering Center’s Rapid Fabrication via Additive Manufacturing on the Battlefield (R-FAB), explained, “We as scientists and engineers can talk about material properties and print bed temperatures and print heads and all this kind of stuff, but the senior leadership is looking at, ‘So what? How does this technology improve readiness? How can I keep systems and Soldiers ready to go?’ And that’s what we’re learning.”

Soldiers used R-FAB during a Pacific Pathways exercise in 2017 to print a camera lens cover for a Stryker vehicle in four hours. [US Army photo]

Stark wrote that the Army is mostly “focusing its efforts on its modernization priorities,” and leaving further development up to academia and industry. If our military wants to use 3D printing for real-world applications, this development needs to speed up – these parts must stand up under plenty of stress.

Dr. Aura Gimm, who was managing the Army’s MIT-affiliated research center program at the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies at the time of her interview, said, “It’s one thing to create decorative parts, but it’s something else if you’re trying to create a loadbearing or actuating parts that could fail.

“The standardization and making sure that we have metrology or the metrics to test and evaluate these parts is going to be quite critical, for [items made with additive] to be actually deployable in the field. Because one thing that we don’t want is to have these parts … not work as expected.”

Dr. Perconti concurred:

“Ultimately, the goal for us is to enable qualified components that are indistinguishable from those they replace. Remember, when you take a part out of a weapon system and replace it with an additive manufactured part, you’re putting lives on the line if that part is not fully capable. So we have to be very sure that whatever we do, we understand the science, we understand the manufacturing, and we understand that we are delivering qualified parts for our warfighters.”

UH-60A/L Black Hawk Helicopter [Image: Military.com]

For example, AMRDEC has been working with General Electric Co. to 3D print parts for the T700 motor, which powers both the Apache and Black Hawk helicopters. However, these motor parts are not in use, as they have not yet been tested and and qualified at the Army’s standards. Kathy Olson, additive manufacturing lead in the Manufacturing Science and Technology Division of the Army’s Manufacturing Technology program at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, said this project is “more of a knowledge transition” to show that it’s possible to 3D print the parts with laser powder bed fusion.

In order to qualify 3D printed parts for Army use, the materials must first be qualified.

“Then you have to qualify your machine and make sure it’s producing repeatable parts, and then qualify the process for the part that you’re building, because you’ll have likely different parameter sets for your different geometries for the different parts [that] you’re going to build,” Olson explained.

“It’s not like you can just press a button and go. There’s a lot of engineering involved on both sides of it. Even the design of your build-layout is going to involve some iteration of getting your layout just such that the part prints correctly.”

One solid application for Army 3D printing is tooling, as changes in this process don’t need any engineering changes.

Dr. Patrick Fowler, right, former lead engineer of the Ex Lab in Afghanistan, works with a Soldier on an idea for a materiel solution.

“You can get quick turnaround on tooling,” Flinn explained. “The design process takes place, but the manufacturing can take place in days instead of weeks…For prototyping or for mainstream manufacturing, I can have a tool made [additively] and up and running in 24 hours.”

If applied correctly, 3D printing will allow soldiers deployed all over the world to make almost anything they need in the field.

“What missions can we solve? We’re finding all kinds of things,” said Phillis. “Humvees are being dead-lined because they don’t have gas caps. Or the gas cap breaks. When they order it, they’ve got to sit there for 30 days or 45 days or however long it takes to get that through the supply system.

“If we can produce it in a couple of hours, now we’ve got a truck that’s ready for use while we’re waiting for the supply system to catch up.”

Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below.

[Images: US Army photos by Jon Micheal Connor, Army Public Affairs, unless otherwise noted]

10 Ways 3D Printing Played a Part in Education in 2018

3D printing is often used in education these days, whether it’s being taught as a subject or used to enhance another one. As we’re moving ever closer to the start of a new year, we decided to save you some time and gather the ten best education stories from 2018 in one article.

Siemens STEM DAY

The Siemens Foundation focuses on philanthropic efforts in order to continue the advancement of STEM-related education and workforce development, and has invested millions of dollars for this cause in the US. In early 2018, the Siemens Foundation worked with Discovery Education to re-brand its annual Siemens Science Day into a program for more modern educational opportunities: Siemens STEM Day, which is an opportunity for US schools to promote STEM activities for both students and teachers. The program, which doesn’t actually happen on one specific day but is a promotion of STEM lessons and hands-on activities, is meant to be used by students in grades K-12, and offers multiple tools and resources to help reboot STEM curriculum.

New 3D Printing Educational Initiatives

[Image: 3D PARS]

In February, we provided a round-up of some of the many educational initiatives that were looking to provide adults with a deeper understanding of 3D printing. Included in this round-up was a new online course for professionals by MIT, new 3D printing courses from the Sharebot Academy program, and a joint two-day training course in additive manufacturing from German consulting firm Ampower and full service prototyping and 3D printing provider H & H. Additional educational initiatives shared in the round-up were 3DPrint.com’s own Additive Manufacturing with Metals Course.

learnbylayers Partnered with Kodak

In 2017, educator Philip Cotton launched an online 3D printing resource for teachers called learnbylayers that offers lesson plans, project ideas, assessments and more that were designed by teachers for teachers. The site grew quickly, and in February Cotton announced that it had reached a distribution agreement with Kodak. The learnbylayers educational curriculum was added to the Kodak 3D Printing Ecosystem, as the company began offering the internationally-taught curriculum along with its Portrait 3D printer’s launch.

Renishaw Deepened Its Commitment to 3D Printing Education

This spring, Renishaw announced that it would be deepening its commitment to 3D printing education. The company established a new Fabrication Development Centre (FDC) at its Miskin facility in South Wales, with the goal of inspiring young people to pursue STEM careers. The FDC has two classrooms, staffed by qualified teachers and Renishaw’s STEM ambassadors, that can be used for free by schools or groups of young people for lessons or workshops. The FDC was actually in use by Radyr Comprehensive School students long before it was officially launched by Andy Green, a driver for Bloodhound SSC, a 3D printing user and Renishaw partner which also devotes many resources to education about the technology.

Ultimaker Launched New 3D Printing Core Lessons for STEAM Education

Lesson 1: Coin Traps

In April, Ultimaker launched its new Ultimaker Core Lessons: STEAM Set for educators. Eight free lessons, published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, are included in the set, which can help teachers in informal, K12, or Higher Ed classrooms incorporate 3D printing into their educational practices and STEAM curriculum. Some of the beginner lessons include 3D printing a coin trap, flashlight, and penny whistle, and can teach young students important skills like how to align objects, using symbols to communicate ideas, and how to effectively work together on creative projects.

PrintLab Teamed Up with CREATE Education Team

UK-based global 3D printing distributor and curriculum provider PrintLab partnered with UK 3D printing company CREATE Education, a collaborative platform that provides educators with free resources and support, in order to support schools all across the UK with 3D printing. Each company’s educational 3D printing offerings will be combined in this partnership so that UK schools can enjoy unlimited access to full 3D printing solutions for the classroom, which will be locally supported for life by CREATE. Multiple initiatives came out of this partnership to support teachers, like  3D printer loan schemes, funding advice and resources, special training and curriculum workshops, and new educational 3D printing bundles.

3Doodler Introduced New Educational Kits

3Doodler has long supported education, and often releases new STEM-centered educational packages, including its latest classroom product line: the 3Doodler Create+ EDU Learning Pack and 3Doodler Start EDU Learning Pack. Each pack, designed for and with teachers, was designed specially for classrooms from kindergarten to 12th grade and includes 6 or 12 3Doodler pens (Create or Start, depending on the package) and 600 or 1,200 strands of plastic, as well as other tech accessories, lesson plans, and classroom materials. Additionally, the company released its 3Doodler Create+ EDU Teacher Experience Kit and 3Doodler EDU Start Teacher Experience Kit, which are designed to be trial packs for teachers who are thinking about introducing the 3Doodler into their classrooms.

Robo Acquired MyStemKits

3D printer manufacturer Robo announced this summer that it had acquired Atlanta company MyStemKits, which provides the largest online library of STEM curriculum in the world. Thanks to this acquisition, Robo is now offering educational bundles that include its classroom-friendly 3D printers, a supply of filament, one-year subscriptions to MyStemKits, and additional professional development and online learning.

GE Additive’s Education Program Provided Five Universities with Metal 3D Printers

GE’s Additive Education Program (AEP) – a five-year, $10 million, two-part initiative to provide 3D printers to as many schools as possible – chose five universities this summer to receive an Mlab 200R from the program. 500 proposals were submitted for this round of the program, and GE Additive chose German’s Coburg University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Ireland’s University of Limerick, the Calhoun Community College in Alabama, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and West Virginia University as the lucky winners.

3D Printing In Fashion Education

In a recently published paper, titled “Integration of 3 Dimensional Modeling and Printing into Fashion Design Curriculum: Opportunities and Challenges,” Nicole Eckerson and Li Zhao from the University of Missouri discussed whether 3D printing should be integrated into fashion design curriculum. The researchers noted that while 3D printing has been recognized as a major influence in the work of designers and engineers, educators in the fashion industry are facing a lack of time, resources, and knowledge to teach the technology to students. The two conducted semi-structured interviews with eight 3D printing industry  experts and academic professionals for their research, and came up with three distinct themes from their data about why 3D printing should be adopted, and taught, in fashion.

Discuss this and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts below.

3D Print Crash Courses Online Trainings in March

We have an exciting March planned with cumulative online trainings — giving you the tools and knowledge to build your 3D printing skills exponentially each week.

We’ll kick things off on March 5 with our Beginner Design for 3D Printing online one-week workshop. The course will give you the fundamentals of 3D modeling programs (CAD) and the design rules for 3D printing from design experts. This foundational course will cover the complete design process, from conception through final prototype.

The interactive crash course works like this:

There will be two guest speaker livestream sessions presented over 90 minutes. Each lesson will provide key principles and case studies, followed by an interactive Q&A. All live sessions will be recorded and posted in the online classroom for on-demand access.

Additionally, there is an online workshop component. In the workshop, you get an assignment to apply what you learn, which you share in a small group workshop and get feedback from an industry expert. The best part? Learning from industry experts and connecting with peers from wherever you are.

Following our Beginner class, we will have three cumulative workshops where you’ll be able to build on 3D print knowledge and skills and learn how to apply them to more advanced concepts. These courses, which follow the same format as the beginner class, are:

Bundle the courses for discounts and have a month immersed in the 3D print world. Take one, two, three, or all four courses — giving you applicable 3D printing skills for your upcoming ventures.