User:Btz5006

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Revision as of 19:39, 7 February 2013 by Btz5006 (talk | contribs) (Post 4:)
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About Me

My name is Blake Ziegler. I am a senior at The Pennsylvania State University studying mechanical Engineering. Some of my interests are Rapid Prototyping, vehicle design, and product test and validation. My hobbies include working on vehicles, riding atvs, and farming. The hobby that I have been getting involved with is longboarding. I am new to the sport and always wanted to ride skate board growing up mostly because I wanted to build my own quarter pipe.

I learned about the RepRap Project while taking the Engineering 497 3d prototyping class as PSU. I was put the Yellow Team and charged with building an Open Hybrid Mendel 3D printer. My team members and I are also fabricating more extruding tips and furthering the development of the dual extruder.

Work in Progress

Yellow Team Progress

Open Hybrid Mendel Build Guide

Machining extruder tips.

Blog Posts

Post 4:

Read this article about Liam's Robohand.

This boy looks so happy that he can use his right hand. I think that it is incredible that two complete strangers from two completely different parts of the world were able to team up and build a hand for Liam. People of society are very selfish and will not take it upon themselves to help out a complete stranger. I always like reading theses kinds of stories of people benefiting society. The open source hand is cool and a pretty good idea but it is not as refined as the closed source robotic hand is. The open source hand is nice because it uses simple parts and is easily fixable because of its simplicity. The closed source hand is very expensive and only can be fixed by the company that makes it. These type of hands are very expensive and can only be fixed by the company. Some benefits of the expensive hand is that it is a custom fit and is refined and probably reacts like a normal hand. With the open source hand it may take some time to get use to using it. The cost of the closed source hand costs more the 5,000 u.s. dollars where the closed source hands only cost a few hundred dollars at most. This group and I could participate in the robohand project by helping refine the design and finding ways to make it cheaper. We could also see if there is a need in the area for someones hand.

Post 3:

Civil Engineering

Behrokh Khoshnevis presents his TEDx Talk on additive construction. He believes that traditional construction methods are wasteful and hazardous. He believes that 3d printing homes is the most efficient and best way to manufacture homes. It was really cool to see the assembly process of these homes. I believe that 3d printing is definitely a possibility for some building, but not homes. I think it would better to print mobile garages and sheds. Conceptually the idea of 3d printing homes is a great idea but I don't think it will take hold any time soon.

Bio Tech and Food Science

The How 3D Printers Are Reshaping Medicine article shares about the advancements of printing tissues. Researchers have developed way to print human organs. Scientists have successfully printed kidney organs. Its boggles my mind to think that people can actually print living organisms. I hope scientist will share there information and help save many lives. Printed burgers don't sound appealing to me at all. I still want to eat normal red meat. And there is no way that I'm paying 300k for that burger.

The Delicious Future: 3D Chocolate Printer Finally Available for Purchase. Printing chocolate is finally here!!! This would be so yummy. It would also be a huge mess. I love some of the intricate patterns that 3d printers and it would be really cool to be able eat it.

Fashion

Q & A dresses that she has designed This clothing is really ugly, but cool at the same time. In appearance, the clothing is not appealing at all. I am interested in what materials that they used to build it. The patterns are cool but the clothing is not practical at all, yet. I don't really see 3d prototyping as a viable source to make clothing.

Other Examples I think that it is really cool the variety of items available by 3d printing. There are so many companies and websites that are using rapid prototyping to be able to provide services for other companies and people. I know some companies are using the technology to create prototype gear boxes on short order to speed up testing. I think there are many possibilities for additive metal processes. I hope companies are able to find more and more reasons to use 3d printing.

Post 2:

Watch "Mother of all Demos"[1]. Do you recognize the rough features we use on every computer today in its earliest form? Are you impressed by what he's demonstrating? Do you think that you would have recognized the importance of this work in you were in the audience at the time? Copy and Paste commands from the 60's really? That's crazy! Its hard to believe that they had that ability back then. If I was in the audience, I probably would have though that it was really cool but probably wouldn't have any idea what it would be able to do in the future. One of the hardest thing to do with new findings and technology is find an application for it.


Watch "Open Source Futures" [2]. What does he say regarding the initial perception of the mother of all demos? Why do we and why should we share the information we generate? Why shouldn't we? How might we better share our knowledge? People thought the "Mother of all demos was fake. When people collaborate on things the sky is the limit. I feel that it is really important to share ideas and concepts to make some really cool things. I think that its is also important to keep things secret if the product is refined and you want to make money off of it. The internet is a great way to share information and also find it. People need to come up with better ways to share information through the internet.

Post 1:

Part A: Five interesting finds on thingiverse[3]:

1. useful: Measuring Spoons [4] because we keep breaking ours at my apartment.

2. artistic/beautiful: Abraham Lincoln[5]becuase some one sculpted this and then used an open source 3d scanner to create a 3d model of the statue.

3. pointless/useless: The Colbear[6]. Well, some one had fun making this but what a waist.

4. funny/weird: Three tone Whistle[7]. A father labored over making this fun sounding whistle for his daughter.

5. scary/strange: Tea Cup Dragon[8]. This just gives me another reason to not drink tea. I don't want a dragon sitting in my tea cup.


Part B: Read this article:[9] Watch this video:Charlie Rose interviews a successful Designer[10]


Do you feel that you are a tinkerer? Do you know anyone else who is? I love tinkering with things, mostly because I like finding out how things work. I find it cool to understand how things are made or assembled. I think that my roommate is the best tinkerer that I know of. He has so many ideas in his head about projects that he wants to work on. Anything from a car top wind tunnel to building his own quad-copter.

What do you think about the argument regarding the influence of corporate culture on tinkering? I believe that corporate causes people to stay within the lines. If everyone would be able to unlock their creativity by not getting hounded by corporate, technology would rapidly increase. I think this is why I am really intrigued by 3D printing. There are so may cool things that people have created because they wanted to, not because of they were fulfilling there requirements of being an employee of a company.

At the end of the article is the line, "...preserving the habitat of the tinkerer is one of the few time-proven ways we as a nation can get back on track." What do you think about this idea? I think that the results of tinkering is more where we are headed then actually getting us "back on track." When people come up with new things, it causes a shift of how other processes are thought about. Like with rapid prototyping, metal can now be printed in complex shapes instead of traditional metal removal processes.

What are the primary design principles you took away from the interview? What did you think when you saw his final project with his daughter? Can you think of how some of his principles might apply to our work? Some of the principles that I took away from the interview was that you should never give up or there is always a way to accomplish your task. I think it is also important to work with a cross-functional team in to create something exceptional. I thought it was cool to see him and his daughter dabbling in the 3d printing world. With all the information available from open sources, it is possible for anyone to accomplish anything. I think its great that this class is made up of so many different people. Everyone has different experiences and backgrounds. When we apply all that knowledge to 'breeding' the next generation of reprap printers it really can lead us in all directions. Only the strong and best designs will survive but thats nature.