Penn State Printer Head for Extruded Clay

The Pennsylvania State University (PSU) School of Visual Arts and College of Engineering are currently in development of an open source clay 3D printing head for use on a variety of open source machines. The project was started in the Fall semester of 2015 and is currently being developed by two new teams for the Spring 2016 semester.

This project is still a work in progress with more updates coming soon.

Project Overview

The ever growing field of 3D printing, more specifically open source 3D printers, caused the PSU School of Visual Arts to have interest in investigated 3D printing as a medium for artists and designers. The ability to print 3D objects in a variety of mediums and the ability to create the 3D printer itself opened up a plethora of design potentials.

The School of Visual Arts soon decided to attempt 3D printing in clay, though not many open source options existed. The School enlisted the help of the College of Engineering and sponsored a Capstone Design Project for the Engineering seniors. The seniors represented every type of engineering at Penn State.