Laguna Beach High School students are getting a taste of the evolving 3-D printing industry while putting new skills to good use.
Students in instructor Scott Wittkop’s multimedia design elective course are transforming plastic into fingers for robotic hands destined to be distributed to children in need through a company called Robohand.
The South Coast Regional Occupational Program, which offers technical career training to Laguna Beach and Capistrano Unified School District students, bought a $3,000 3-D printer from Costa Mesa-based Airwolf and suggested Wittkop use the technology in his class.
3-D printing is a manufacturing process that creates a three-dimensional solid object from a digital model, typically by laying down layers of a material.
The students insert plastic, rolled up in spools, into a tube. They then monitor the tempurature as the plastic moves through the tube and eventually melts and reforms into the desired shapes. Fingers emerge from the printer to rest on a piece of tempered glass.
“To see how far technology has come, to turn an idea into an actual physical object is something special,” said senior Cameron Zuziak, 18.
It takes about two hours to print parts, which include fingers and two rods meant to brace a forearm.
Occasionally a part doesn’t come out quite right. In that case, it’s time to make a few adjustments and print another one, said senior Dylan Augenstein, 18.
“There’s been some trial and error,” Augenstein said.
Once the parts are completed, Wittkop mails them to ROP officials, who send them to Robohand’s U.S. office in Atlanta. Robohand
Article source: http://www.coastlinepilot.com/news/tn-cpt-me-0320-robohand-20150319,0,2949009.story
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