Science Projects

Dr. Mishra Wins Competitve NSF Grant to Support Funding to Help 3D Printers ‘Learn’, via Metal Powder Report. Dr. Sandipan Mishra, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has won a five-year US$400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to improve the additive manufacturing (AM) process. Dr Mishra, who works in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering, plans to use the money to investigate and develop new sensing and controls paradigms to help develop additive manufacturing, according to a press release. The project, titled “Multi-objective learning control strategies for additive manufacturing,” will develop advanced sensing and controls algorithms for improving the precision and reliability of additive manufacturing technologies, including 3D printing. Despite its tremendous potential, additive manufacturing is hampered by poor process reliability and throughput, and systems currently are not precise or robust enough to be scaled up and used for commercial, mass-manufactured products, it is suggested. Dr Mishra’s goal is to overcome this challenge by creating smarter control systems that will use sensor measurements to help 3D printers learn and adapt as they are operating. Many additive manufacturing technologies work by applying or printing thin layers of materials on top of one another, constructing the object from the ground up, one layer at a time. Dr Mishra will create and design a feedback system that will enable an additive manufacturing system to make small, iterative refinements in the midst of a printing job. The system will be able to continually assess the progress of a print job, and then automatically make necessary adjustments to ensure the finished good will have specific pre-determined properties or geometries. These process improvements could boost the overall reliability of 3D printing, and open the door to creating larger and faster additive manufacturing technologies suitable for industrial-scale production. The grant, part of a Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) is given to faculty members at the beginning of their academic careers and is one of NSF’s most competitive awards. “We congratulate Dr Mishra for receiving an NSF CAREER Award to support his promising and timely research into control systems for additive manufacturing,” said David Rosowsky, dean of the School of Engineering at Rensselaer. “The CAREER Award is among the highest honours a new faculty member can receive, and recognizes their potential for significant scholarly impact early in their academic career.” Read more. Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers! Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D! The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

As the number of 3D parts repositories have been increasing tremendously in recent days as desktop 3D printing enthusiasts and 3D artists hunger for new sources for models to print out and manipulate based on interests, brand loyalty (or frustration), and opportunities to using versioning tools to track part changes, a handful of specialty sites have appeared to curate unique collections such as the Forme 3D scans of natural objects, from Fabbaloo: Another new source for 3D models has launched: Forme, focused on high-resolution scans of a wide variety of object categories. This model repository offers something quite different from the numerous other 3D model repositories that have popped up lately. Forme offers 3D scans, not modeled objects. They’re not provided in STL form, but instead in OBJ format. Forme says: Forme has created a digital design library that gives 3D modellers easy, affordable access to a fascinating range of digitised objects. These ready-to-use, high resolution models mean intricate details or natural forms can be rapidly and accurately recreated. They can also act as a starting point or building block – saving the time and effort of creating entire models from scratch. An inspection of Forme’s library shows a very broad selection of scans. For example, their “Reference” section contains these subcategories: Plant: Bark, Leaves, Fruit and veg, Nuts and seeds, Flowers, Twigs Animal: Horns, Shells, Bones, Sea creatures, Pelts, Teeth, Insects, Organs Mineral: Crystals, Miscellaneous Forme also includes a wide selection of cups, bowls, plates, and patterns. The items are moderately priced, typically around USD$10 each. Aside from the fascinatingly unique collection, we’re most excited about the possibility of integrating these models into other 3D designs. Imagine putting tree bark on the side of your bookends, or having a crab sit on top of that coathook? Read more.

How to generate high voltage DC with a Cockcroft-Walton Multiplier circuit. a.k.a Cockcroft-Walton / Villard / Greinacher Cascade EEVblog #469 – Cockcroft-Walton Multiplier - [Link]

Sculptor Marco Mahler and mathematician Henry Segerman have joined forces to bring a very special and dynamic form of mathematical sculptures to the world of 3D printing — the world’s first entirely 3D printed mobiles! These 3D printed mobiles are the result of a collaboration between Marco Mahler, a kinetic sculptor specializing in mobiles, and Henry Segerman, a research fellow in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Melbourne. These mobiles come out of the 3D-printer completely assembled as shown in the photos and video. They are made of separate loose pieces connected to each other. The balance points for these mobiles were calculated to 1/1000th of a millimeter (1/25360th of an inch). The models for some of these mobiles were drawn up “by hand”, others were created utilizing scripts that we wrote. Some of the mobiles, like Mobile 4.2, are designed with a very small increase or decrease in thickness from one part to the next, something that is not possible to do with conventional handmade mobiles. Utilizing scripts also allows for designs that would be very time consuming to make by hand, such as the Quaternary Tree (Level 6), which has 1365 pieces. We met via Twitter (Marco lives in Portland, Oregon, Henry in Melbourne, Australia) in early February 2013 when Henry was looking for suggestions for a motor for one of his 3D printed kinetic sculptures. A conversation ensued about the possibilities for making 3D printed mobiles. After about 300 emails, several conversations over Skype, hundreds of lines of code, and a number of test prints and trial-and-error experiments, the result is the collection of mobiles that is now available through our shop at Shapeways (a 3D printing service company). After an extensive Google search, it appears that these are the first fully 3D printed mobiles in the world. All models are available in “White Strong & Flexible”, a laser sintered nylon plastic, one of the most popular materials for 3D-printing. Some of the smaller models are also available in “Black Strong & Flexible” and a variety of polished colors. This material is heatproof to 80C/176F degrees. Higher temperatures may significantly change material properties. It is also dishwasher safe (“Yay, finally a mobile we can put in the dishwasher!”). If you’re not sure what 3D printing is, the Wikipedia page for it explains it rather well. If you’re not sure what a mobile is, see my definition, short history and photos of my handmade mobiles…. Read more. Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers! Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D! The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

Quentin Harley released SCARA based “RepRap Morgan” 3D printer and its design, via 3ders: Reprap Morgan is a concentric dual arm SCARA FDM 3D printer, designed and built by Quentin Harley. The SCARA stands for Selective Compliant Assembly Robot Arm or Selective Compliant Articulated Robot Arm. Harley has been working on this project for a couple of years, and in February Harley released pictures showing off the build. The extruder of this Reprap Morgan 3D printer moves along the x and y axes and the bed itself moves along the Z axis. Its major parts, such as the arms, driving gears, pipe adapters are printed on a 3D printer. Yesterday Harley has officially released the Morgan plans, this is a big step for the development of entry-level 3D printers. This printer is very simple and easy to assemble, and built with only affordable consumables. “RepRAP Morgan is all about a dream. A dream to make it easy for anyone in South Africa, or anywhere else in the world to build a 3D printer without needing exceedingly expensive materials, hard to find components, stuff that has to be shipped at sometimes more than the cost of the components, requiring advanced tools.” Notes Harley. “Morgan is to be a tool for creation, not a toy or end product. It should be used in education, and must be affordable and safe enough for school kids to use.” adds Harley. Read more here, and check out the source on Github.

From the mail bag! I ordered the Experimentation Kit for Arduino and I am addicted! Thank you! I have heard a lot of people talking about Arduino, but I think most people are still intimidated because they don’t know electronics or they are afraid of programming. I have been a systems engineer since 1992 and have written several web apps and iPhone apps. Dave

Terry Wohlers fears U.S. losing its edge in additive manufacturing, from 3ders.org: Terry Wohlers, an industry consultant, analyst, and speaker, president of independent consulting firm Wohlers Associates, provided some impressive insights into the market of Additive Manufacturing during their preparation for the publication of Wohlers Report 2013. He revealed some interesting data: “16 companies in Europe, 7 in China, 5 in the U.S., and 2 in Japan now manufacture and sell professional-grade, industrial additive manufacturing (AM) and 3D printing systems. This is a dramatic change from a decade ago when the mix was 10 in the U.S., 7 in Europe, 7 in Japan, and 3 in China.” Last year, the Obama Administration announced the launch of the new National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) to be housed in renovated industrial space in Youngstown, aiming to help lead a renaissance in U.S. manufacturing. “This institute will help make sure that the manufacturing jobs of tomorrow take root not in places like China or India, but right here in the United States,” Obama said. Is the U.S. losing its edge in AM? This data on AM systems manufacturing and sales suggests that it is. Notes Wohlers: What’s more, all of the metal powder bed fusion systems are manufactured outside the U.S. Seven manufacturers of these systems are in Europe and two are in China. Together, China, Singapore, many countries in Europe, and even South Africa, have committed hundreds of millions of dollars in AM development and commercialization over the next few years. The U.S. continues to lead the world with the largest installed base of AM users. When Wohlers Report 2013 becomes available soon, it will report that 38% of all industrial AM installations are in the U.S. Japan is second with 9.7%, followed by Germany with 9.4% and China with 8.7%. With such a large number of systems, one could argue that the U.S. has the most experience, expertise, and know-how in AM. The NAMII was launched by the White House with the support of several agencies, including the Department of Defense. This initiative seeks to accelerate the position of the U.S. in the development and use of AM technology. It will not be easy, given what organizations in China and other regions of the world have planned. My recommendation to key leaders in the U.S. is to focus on the big picture with big goals, such as the development of metal-based powder bed fusion systems and other advanced AM system technology. Market forces and competitive pressures will take care of the smaller challenges and incremental technology improvements. Read more. Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers! Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D! The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!

Writing a basic I2C or SPI driver for your sensor is only 1/2 the work (often less!).  All of the real magic is doing something with that sensor data, and that often means getting your hands dirty with some basic DSP (digital signal processing).  I stumbled across this paper on filtering sensor data to balance a device, but it shows a lot of the tradeoffs and decisions that go into making real-world use of raw sensor data.  (See The Balance Filter: A Simple Solution for Integrating Accelerometer and Gyroscope Measurements for a Balancing Platform by Scott Colton.)  DSP is an extremely interesting field, and there a lot of fun challenges to be had, but picking the right filters (with the right performance characteristics) can take some thought.  Have any fun stories yourself where a favorite filter saved the day?  Post the up in the comments below!

If you are tied to your cell phone to monitor weather, calendar events and stocks, the Alert Tube could be the next gadget you need. Michael Watson built is around a Raspberry Pi, it monitors the net for events that you choose and alerts you by light patterns, text to speech or sounds. You can see the entire project build details here. “The Alert Tube is an open source information appliance that connects wirelessly to the Internet of Things in the cloud. The user interface is dead simple, it communicates data via customized colored light sequences, sounds and text to speech. The idea for the Alert Tube came from something simple, a clock. You don’t have to turn it on, or boot it up and request information, it simply tells you the time, all the time, without you having to ask. That’s the idea behind the Alert Tube. You tell it what you want and then it continuously displays and/or emits audible information, without you having to ask. Simply walk by and take a glance at it or listen for any important alerts. Set it and forget it!”

Yesterday Microsoft announced their new cable box, the Xbox One. Included in the announcement is a vastly improved Kinect sensor. It won’t be available until next Christmas, but now the question is what are we going to do with it? From what initial specs that can be found, the new version of the Kinect will output RGB 1080p video over a USB 3.0 connection to the new Xbox. The IR depth camera of the original Kinect has been replaced with a time of flight camera – a camera that is able to send out a pulse of light and time how long it takes for photons to be reflected back to the camera. While there have been some inroads into making low-cost ToF cameras – namely Intel and Creative’s Interactive Gesture Camera Development Kit and the $250 DepthSense 325 from SoftKinetic - the Kinect 2.0 will be the first time of flight camera you’ll be able to buy for a few hundred bucks at any Walmart. We’ve seen a ton of awesome Kinect hacks over the years. Everything from a ‘holographic display’ that turns any TV into a 3D display, computer vision for robots, and a 3D scanner among others. A new Kinect sensor with better 3D resolution can only improve existing projects and the time of flight sensor – like the one found in Google’s driverless car – opens up the door for a whole bunch of new projects. So, readers of Hackaday, assuming someone can write a driver in a few days like the Kinect 1.0, what are we going to do with it? While we’re at it, keep in mind we made a call for Wii U controller hacks. If somebody can crack that nut, it’ll be an awesome remote for robots and FPV airplanes and drones. Filed under: Ask Hackaday, Kinect hacks