What is a 3D printer?
3D printers are miniature manufacturing plants that produce things. What kind of things? 3D things of course! Even with that explanation, people keep asking us if it’s like their printer at home and whether they use paper. The printers that we provide to our customers use something called ABS plastic which is the same type of plastic used in other common household items such as Legos®. The plastic used in the printers comes on a roll very much like fishing line or weedeater string and is usually called “filament”. The filament is then fed into the extruder with a little wheel and squeezed out the end like toothpaste. I don’t currently have a closeup video of the filament coming out, but here is a video showing a time lapse of an Afinia H-series printer making the famous statue by Rodin, The Thinker.
There are lots of other things that you could ask about 3D printers, so just make a comment below, and we’ll take a few minutes to pull aside the curtain and show you the exciting land of 3D printing. As you continue investigating 3D printing, I want you to know that here at Windy Ridge Innovation we make sure that whatever printer we recommend to you will be the right one for the job. Just like clothing, there are no one-size-fits-all printers. Every printer has a niche that it serves quite well. I test our printers extensively before recommending them for your particular application. I don’t want you to just “like” your 3D printer. I want you to LOVE your 3D printer!!
Muahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!! Ok, now that I have that out... I can get to work. For as long as I can remember, I have been making things. This habit used to be called "Inventing" but has lately been repurposed by the Maker community with the term "Maker". While there are some subtle differences between Inventing and Making, I have discovered my passion for both by inspiring a new generation of Makers. In this quest to spark creative thinking and problem solving through practical and exciting projects, I draw on my background in biomedical research, high energy fiber laser development, and 15 years of building laboratory devices. As an experimental physicist with a PhD from Case Western Reserve University, I have seen research and development from many angles and am now bringing that experience to middle school and high school students who want to make everything from catapults to cybernetic augmentations. Through the medium of Making and Inventing, students are transformed from passive observers of education to active learners. This powerful shift fosters deep insights, creative expression, collaborative thinking and a host of other skills that are difficult to learn in traditional settings. Along with my wife Debby, an accomplished constructivist educator, I am on a quest to transform education and am looking for like-minded collaborators to bring hands-on learning to future generations.
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