Friday, November 21, 2014

UCF, Stratasys Create Life-Changing Prosthetic Arm


University of Central Florida (UCF) engineering students have developed a robotic arm for 6-year-old Alex Pring, using a Dimension Elite 3D Printer by Stratasys.


Born without his right arm, Pring always dreamed of climbing trees or shaking hands. His dreams came true thanks to UCF engineering students who designed and 3D printed a functional prosthetic arm. Aerospace engineering Ph.D. student and Fulbright Scholar Albert Manero is a volunteer at E-Nable, a network of 3D Printing enthusiast’s whose goal is to develop 3D Printed prosthetic hands for those in need.


Manero met Alex and his family through the E-Nable online network. Manero, along with his team, dedicated seven weeks for their design. The Dimension Elite 3D Printer delivered rapid design iteration during the process and the Ivory ABS M-30 Material used was strong, yet light enough for Alex to easily move.


“He learned to use the prosthetic fast,” Manero said. “When he could control it, the first thing he did was hug his mother. He said it was their first real hug. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.


Read more at ENGINEERING.com




by ENGINEERING.com via Fabbaloo

Friday, November 7, 2014

MIT Engineer Prints Houses and Nanoscale Medical Devices


When an aspiring mechanical engineer on a budget wants a top-of-the-line guitar, what does he do? He makes it himself, of course.


At age 13, Nathan Spielberg — now an MIT senior — began building his first guitar, a process that consumed his attention for eight hours a day, every weekend, for 3 1/2 years. Reminiscing now, he calls it a full-time hobby, but it was also pure inspiration: Strumming away on what was once a mere block of wood, Spielberg grew to appreciate the potential to turn an abstract idea into a functional object.


As a mechanical engineering major at MIT, he has held onto this tenet, but turned his attention to a new means of production: 3-D printing. Until recently, Spielberg worked in the MIT Media Lab with Neri Oxman, the Sony Corporation Career Development Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, and PhD student Steven Keating. There, he focused on optimizing system designs that can handle large-scale printing projects, like houses.


As Spielberg sees it, 3-D printing has two extremes: At one end is rapid prototyping, which allows researchers to design, print, and experiment — and then design, print, and experiment again — many times faster than traditional manufacturing. On the other end is express, large-scale construction of single objects. That’s where his research with Oxman comes in.


Read more at ENGINEERING.com




by ENGINEERING.com via Fabbaloo