Do-it-yourself in a digital way

Schools in Houston County are participating in varying degrees in the next digital revolution: 3-D printing.

Computer instructors Will Smith at the Houston County Career Academy and Grady Knight at The Westfield School agree 3-D printing has profound implications and a myriad of applications.

They also agree we’re just taking baby steps at the moment.

Knight said he had a budget of $500 to obtain a 3-D printer, “and at that price they’re all do-it-yourself kits. Basically they come from China flat in a box.”

Smith has a variety of printers to teach with, producing material from a postage-stamp size to much larger items.

Knight and some of his students have been busy assembling the printer, which arrived the weekend before Thanksgiving,

“We’ve put in about 20 hours work on it, and about five hours of that has been undoing what we’ve done and deciding, ’Hey wouldn’t that work better if we took this set of bearings and flipped it around?’” he said. “It seems to make more sense that way.’”

The majority of the time seems to be in assembling the printer, but with the cost coming down pretty soon they will be as prominent in the stores as computers once were.

And instead of a bricks-and-mortar store, there is the worldwide web to go shopping for products you want to make.

“Nowadays 3-D printers are getting more inexpensive; you can find a good one today for less than $500, but at the very beginning they were expensive,” said Smith. “And I believe this is going to be the future because with 3-D printing, if you have the code for it you can download the code and make anything.”

Small objects don’t take much time to make. Then there are some large objects that’ll take hours to print, he said.

“The Internet has been a wealth of resources because a lot of different people, lots of different people, not manufacturers, have assembled similar projects,” said Knight. “You can read their comments ‘if you have these issues you can try this or try this’ and things of that nature.”

The printing deck travels smoothly back and forth. It builds the object from the bottom upwards.

“The media is ABS plastic; it looks like Weed Whacker line, but it’s very expensive Weed Whacker line,” he continued. “And it starts the first layer on that metal plate which is heated on the underside 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and the first layer of plastic goes onto the metal and it builds from there. When it’s all done, take a spatula and pop it off from there.”

The applications are almost endless, Smith said.

“Younger people are used to technology and are more tech-savvy, especially 21st century technology and they’re going to catch on to this quickly. It’s going to jump off

tremendously. You’re going to go into a store and buy the code and it’ll make it for you. You won’t see products on shelves as much as you’ll see a prototype and its code – that is what you’ll buy.”

It’s early in the game, but 3-D printing is on the rise, Smith said. Young people in school are making keychains and coasters now, but they’ll be doing more serious work in the future.

“It increases creativity and critical thinking,” he said.

“The day is going to come when you’re not going to go to a hardware store. You’re going to go to your computer and print the tool, the wrench that you need,” said Knight.

For the future, Smith said, STEM (science, technology, electronics and math) classes will be the foundation for a career.

“Manufacturing used to mean you’re getting your hands dirty, but not necessarily any more. STEM classes will be a priority,” he said. “They’ll be the top jobs to have for the next 20 years.”

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