Featured Tech of the Month: 3D Printing
“What we see in the Maker Movement, is that a relatively small amount of people can have a big impact. You don’t necessarily need the world’s largest company behind you.”
What is 3D printing?
3D printing is the rendering of a physical object from a digital file of a 3D model. At the Hackerspace, we use Makerbot Mini+ which layer (print) thin layers of plastic filament (3D printing ink) on top of one another. With different printers there are also different filaments ranging from corn-based plastic (PLA) we use at the Hackerspace to cement filament for printing buildings to bio-filament used for living organisms.
3D Printing at UMaine
- The UMaine High Altitude Ballooning Club 3D printed a custom nozzle, at the Hackerspace, for a weather balloon launch that went 95,000 ft into the atmosphere
- The Innovative Media Research and Commercialization Center (IMRC) has commercial-grade printers great for prototyping robust ideas; check out their prototyping studio
- All UMaine students, faculty, and staff get 25 g of printing filament to use at the Hackerspace for FREE
- The Hackerspace has a 3D scanner you can use to create your model
- Stop by the Hackerspace to find a model you can print today!