Friday 7 May 2010

Earlston High School Visit

Now it is time for an update on Earlston High School and their kit. After some morning engineering inspiration when passing the very impressive wind turbines of Dunlaw Wind Farm we arrived to the brand new building of Earlston High School in the Scottish borders.

The visit started with a quick tour of the design and technology facilities of this brand new school, lots of machinery that can easily compete with the equipment we are used to at the University of Strathclyde. It is clear from the work on walls that the students can be very creative with Autodesk Inventor 3d CAD software, an excellent starting point for models that can later be produced on the RapMan 3d printer.

We then met some of the students from the club who were very keen to see their hard building work on their machine producing some tangible output. The team had finished the build manuals and so the next step was the operation manual, this required levelling the print platform, sanding the bed surface and adjusting the extruder nozzle to just the right height (0.5mm) above the print bed. These steps took several iterations over the course of the afternoon from additional sanding for an improved bed surface to fiddling until suitable levels and heights.

After these adjustments and having remembered to bring a small amount of spare ABS (2m) and a SD memory card (the school don't yet have one), we got to work printing out the test rafts (single layer test patterns). There was much suspense in the room as we had to wait for the head to heat up to the 230°C required, the first rafts highlighted the bed to nozzle was too wide (curly pattern) while the second was too narrow (stuck to bed). After fixing the height we got on with printing something real, the mini-mug example.

The print was going well until the mug started turning out square because of skipping on the X and Y axis. It was quickly identified that tightness between the sandwich of laser cut sheets and the bearings was causing stiffness that was sticking the axis on some steps. Quick re-orientation on one bearing seemed to fix the problem for one axis and so the club now have to fiddle with the rest and can hopefully get on with printing more tests and then on to some of their own design.

The teachers were all very enthused to have a kit, noting that this provides much needed practical examples of rapid prototyping to the product design coursework that would otherwise remain a fairly detached concept but can now be integrated with their projects as applicable. The students are also very keen to see physical solid copies of their 3d designs come to live. The club has some good ideas for the June meet and competition and are looking forward to visiting and engaging the other schools in Glasgow.

- Gavin and Claire from University of Strathclyde

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