Tag: working with the hands

Building a 3d Printer

Building the printer.
Building the printer.

I took three students to a workshop were we’re building a 3d printer. It’s run out of the Whitfield School. We spend today putting together the electronics to run the five motors we need to get the thing to work, and starting to put the frame together.

The frame is based on the RepRap Prusa i3 (via DIY Tech Shop), and the plastic parts that hold the rods, electronics and other metal bits together are 3d printed themselves.

Students learn to solder.
Students learn to solder.

The motors is run by an Arduino, which is great because I’ve been thinking about using one to operate the doors to the chicken coops.

Notes on hardware

Microcontroller

  • Arduino Mega 2560 R3
  • RAMPS Shield 1.4
  • RepRap StepStick Pololu A4988 (I think) stepper driver (plus heat sinks)

Filament: 1.75 mm PLA

The Final Product

My electric guitar.
My electric guitar.

So I made the guitar. The guitarbuilding group make it hard to make a bad guitar, with the beautiful materials they provide, and their expert instruction, however, I’m inordinately proud of myself as well.

Indeed, as more and more of the elements fell into place over the course of the week, it really brought home the affective power of a) building something with your own hands, and b) the iconography of the electric guitar.

Now I have to figure out the logistics of doing this at Fulton. But as the workshop instructors pointed out, even if you don’t have students build one, just bringing the electric guitar into the classroom and saying, “Today we’re going to study sound,” really catches the attention.