Techno_Waffles Learn How to 3D-Print

November 5, 2020 - Techno_Waffles Members brainstorm fundraising ideas, and learn how to operate a 3D-printer.

Brainstorm Session

The meeting opens with a discussion of possible club fundraisers we could feasibly pull off over the course of the rest of the year. The team has enough to purchase two starter sets (roughly $600), and may need additional funds to purchase additional components to maintain the 3D-printer.

Team Captain Elijah Sandoval-Dean organized a brainstorming session (pictured left) with members Luis Hernandez-Trejo, Asher Randolph, Carlos Rivera, Hayden Elliott, and Jack Richards. After roughly 45 minutes, the team was left with a satisfactory starter list of fundraisers, listed below:

1. School gift baskets

2. Candy-grams

3. Car wash

4. Unofficial "Hershey's Kiss-ing Booth"

While the list is small, the team hopes to add to it and hopefully hold one an official Techno_Waffles fundraiser by December.

Learning to 3D-Print

The second half of the meeting was dedicated to learning the fundamentals of 3D-printing. The robotics team acquired the 3D-printer from head football coach, Mr. Davidson. A couple of the members from the club and Mr. Friesen's robotics class helped fix the machine and set it up (pictured below).

Members Samuel Maxwell, Asher Randolph, and Elijah Sandoval-Dean focused on gaining a basic understanding of the printer over the course of October, and were now able to teach the basics to the rest of the team.

The printer is hooked up to a personal laptop that runs the MakerBot app, allowing us to import homemade or official 3D files. In addition, the 3D-printer is programmed with several pre-made designs. As an example, Elijah loaded up the 3D blueprints for a 20 mm box.

Now the printer has to go through several initialization processes before it is ready to print.

The first of these startup sequences include the heating of the Smart Extractor (the tip that holds and ejects plastic onto the taped mat) to roughly 215*C. After this step is completed, the spooled plastic filament has to be loaded into the back casing and threaded into and accepted by the Smart Extractor. For this example, the team opted for purple filament. The final step involves the Smart Extractor mapping out the size of the mat below it, which it then processes and sends to the computer. When this is done, and only when this is done, can the printing process begin.

After roughly 12 minutes of waiting, the 3D-printer fully printed a 20 mm purple box attached to a roughly made purple foundation. While the box itself is small, the limitless applications and possibilities for this machine as part of the club becomes apparent.