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- All Subjects: Survey
- All Subjects: 3D Printing
- Creators: Aukes, Daniel
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, declared in March of 2020, there have been many lifestyle changes which have likely influenced tobacco smoking behavior. Such lifestyle changes include lockdowns, stay at home orders, reduction in social cues related to smoking, increased stress, and boredom among other things. This study utilized a cross-sectional survey which looked into these behaviors, primarily perceived risk to COVID-19, and determined if there is an association between perceived risk and education level/race. Education level is a proxy for income and material resources, therefore making it more likely that people with lower levels of education have fewer resources and higher perceived risk to negative effects of COVID-19. Additionally, people of color are often marginalized in the medical community along with being the target of heavy advertising by tobacco companies which have likely impacted risk to COVID-19 as well.
While many 3D printed structures are rigid and stationary, the potential for complex geometries offers a chance for creative and useful motion. Printing structures larger than the print bed, reducing the need for support materials, maintaining multiple states without actuation, and mimicking origami folding are some of the opportunities offered by 3D printed hinges. Current efforts frequently employ advanced materials and equipment that are not available to all users. The purpose of this project was to develop a parametric, print-in-place, self-locking hinge that could be printed using very basic materials and equipment. Six main designs were developed, printed, and tested for their strength in maintaining a locked position. Two general design types were used: 1) sliding hinges and 2) removable pin hinges. The test results were analyzed to identify and explain the causes of observed trends. The amount of interference between the pin vertex and knuckle hole edge was identified as the main factor in hinge strength. After initial testing, the designs were modified and applied to several structures, with successful results for a collapsible hexagon and a folding table. While the initial goal was to have one CAD model as a final product, the need to evaluate tradeoffs depending on the exact application made this impossible. Instead, a set of design guidelines was created to help users make strategic decisions and create their own design. Future work could explore additional scaling effects, printing factors, or other design types.
Multi-material manufacturing has applications in robotics because, with it, mechanisms can be built into a design without adding additional moving parts. This allows for robot designs that are both robust and low cost, making it a particularly attractive method for education or research. 3D printing is of particular interest in this area because it is low cost, readily available, and capable of easily producing complicated part geometries. Some machines are also capable of depositing multiple materials during a single process. However, up to this point, planning the steps to create a part using multi-material manufacturing has been done manually, requiring specialized knowledge of the tools used. The difficulty of this planning procedure can prevent many students and researchers from using multi-material manufacturing.
This project studied methods of automating the planning of multi-material manufacturing processes through the development of a computational framework for processing 3D models and automatically generating viable manufacturing sequences. This framework includes solid operations and algorithms which assist the designer in computing manufacturing steps for multi-material models. This research is informing the development of a software planning tool which will simplify the planning needed by multi-material fabrication, making it more accessible for use in education or research.
In our paper, Voxel-Based Cad Framework for Planning Functionally Graded and Multi-Step Rapid Fabrication Processes, we present a new framework for representing and computing functionally-graded materials for use in rapid prototyping applications. We introduce the material description itself, low-level operations which can be used to combine one or more geometries together, and algorithms which assist the designer in computing manufacturing-compatible sequences. We then apply these techniques to several example scenarios. First, we demonstrate the use of a Gaussian blur to add graded material transitions to a model which can then be produced using a multi-material 3D printing process. Our second example highlights our solution to the problem of inserting a discrete, off-the-shelf part into a 3D printed model during the printing sequence. Finally, we implement this second example and manufacture two example components.
The creative project was to create a working prototype kit that can teach multiple lessons of the curriculum that the schools or individual families could purchase. The curriculum would be centered on the engineering and science curriculum that is introduced from fourth to sixth grade classes. By creating an interactive kit with curriculum that the students could individualize and use for multiple lessons, the goal is to get them more engaged in the material. The project would consist of a week-long project kit that will introduce different engineering topics for three to four days of the week with mini projects and a final project that pieces together the topics they learned. The biggest take away from the project was how to best get user feedback and fast track the IRB process. The IRB process for a project focusing on minors and teachers will cause some catches in the process. Included is a discussion on the IRB process for a project like this and how to best go through or avoid IRB to ensure the project can progress, while still gathering valuable information.
