TECH FRONT THE LATEST RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT NEWS IN MANUFACTURING AND TECHNOLOGY t
‘On-the-Fly’ 3D System Allows for Quick Changes While Printing
3D
printing has become a powerful tool thanks to its ability to customize designs and speed up the prototyping process. But what happens
when an engineer decides to make changes? Researchers at Cornell have designed an interactive proto- typing system that prints what you’re designing as you design it. This allows the engineer to pause the printing process at any time to test, measure, and, if necessary, make changes that will be made directly to the model that’s still in the printer. The On-the-Fly Print system builds on the
already successful WirePrint printer, designed in partnership with the Hasso Platner Institute in Potsdam, Germany. With WirePrint, a nozzle ex- trudes a quick-hardening plastic to create a frame that represents the surface of the solid object designed in CAD. The idea is to improve printing time by creating a model of the shape of an object instead of printing the entire solid. The new system features fi ve degrees of free- dom, allowing the printer’s platform to be rotated to present any face of the model facing up to meet the vertical nozzle. The nozzle has been extended so that it can reach through the wire mesh of the model to make changes within. A removable base anchored by mag- nets allows for the removal of the model for measurement or testing. The system also features a cutter. The software integrates easily into Autodesk software (the company supported the project, along with the National Science Foundation) and allows for manual interruptions. Printing can continue while the designer works on the CAD fi le, but will resume when that work is done and incorporate any changes into the print job. As a demonstration, the researchers created a model of a toy airplane to fi t into a Lego airport set. This involved adding wings, cutting out a cockpit for a Lego pilot and frequently removing the model to see if the wingspan is right to fi t on the runway. The entire project was completed in just 10 minutes.
The paper, “On-The-Fly Print: Incremental Printing While Modeling” was authored by graduate student Huaishu Peng’ François Guimbretière, associate professor of information science; Steve Marschner, professor of computer science; and doctoral student Rundong Wu.
A wire frame prototype of a toy aircraft for a Lego kit was printed in just 10 minutes, including testing for correct fi t.
P
Injectable Computers Can Broadcast from Inside the Body
rofessors at the University of Michigan have designed a new, low-power sensing system that can be injected into the body through a syringe. Unlike other millimeter-scale radios, these new devices are able to broadcast through the body to an external receiver. The project, spearheaded by Professors David Blaauw and David Wenzloff, is from the Integrated Circuits Lab, the same lab responsible for the Michigan Micro Mote (M3) – currently the world’s smallest computer. Measuring in at less than half a centimeter, the M3 is a fully autonomous comput- ing system that acts as a smart sensing system. Once a device is implanted, its ultimate usefulness de- pends both on its ability to assess essential information and
August 2016 |
AdvancedManufacturing.org 35
Photo courtesy Cornell University
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