{"id":1229,"date":"2015-09-02T20:40:02","date_gmt":"2015-09-02T20:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/?p=1229"},"modified":"2023-05-24T17:57:07","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T17:57:07","slug":"1229","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/2015\/09\/02\/1229\/","title":{"rendered":"“Sputnik Moments”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Led by chemistry Professor\u00a0Lon Porter in partnership with\u00a0students in the CIBE, the College\u2019s 3D Printing and Fabrication Center is injecting some STEAM into STEM.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was the highlight of last spring\u2019s Alumni\u00a0Faculty Symposium and many of the older men in the audience were leaning forward in their seats, waiting to see what Professor Lon Porter would come up with next.<\/p>\n

He had just walked alumni, faculty, and students through a brief history of 3D printing and its potential for teaching and learning at Wabash. He had passed out pieces he\u2019d practiced on\u2014a set of gears, a model of a turbine, and an impressive bust in miniature
\nof Professor Wally Novak. He had demonstrated the instrument Professor Richard Dallinger had designed and his students had made for chemistry labs.<\/p>\n

The College\u2019s Ultimaker 3D printer was whirring\u00a0at one end of the room and an alum was taking\u00a0photos with his camera phone as Porter spoke about the \u201cmaker\u201d movement and how student interest\u00a0is driving 3D printing on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0think we\u2019ve hit a \u2018Sputnik moment\u2019 with this generation of students,\u201d Porter said. \u201c3D printing, microprocessors, and materials are coming together\u00a0in such a way that if you can think of it, you can make it. Students are going to be enthralled with this idea, and you can connect this technology with classes across the disciplines.\u201d<\/p>\n

He talked about the committee of professors and students from the arts, sciences, humanities, and social sciences\u00a0at Wabash who are already coming up\u00a0with intriguing ways\u00a0to use the technology for teaching in their courses.<\/p>\n

And then, surprising even the symposium\u2019s organizers,\u00a0Porter revealed a red and\u00a0white \u201cHovey Hand\u201d\u2014a prototype of a low-cost prosthetic he had assembled from more than 30 parts printed by the Ultimaker. The professor had been inspired by the e-Nable volunteer group, which seeks to match injured children with 3D printer owners\u00a0to manufacture low-cost prosthetic hands and arms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still really new to this effort, but I feel we can make an important contribution,\u201d he said, concluding his presentation. \u201cI hope that we can provide these devices to children in the local community and abroad, a way in which this technology can help us to \u2018live humanely,\u2019 as we say in our mission statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fast forward three months and 3D printing\u00a0at Wabash is having a Sputnik moment of its own.<\/h4>\n

In May the College received a $22,000 grant from Independent Colleges of Indiana\/Ball Brothers Venture Fund to establish a 3D Printing and Fabrication Center (3D-PFC) on campus. The grant will bring together the critical thinking, experimental design, modeling, and data analysis emphasis of STEM-based learning (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) with the creativity, innovative thinking, and effective communication of art and design to create a cross-disciplinary collaboration within the liberal arts. The holistic approach, creating STEAM from STEM and art, will explore opportunities to infuse this cooperation throughout campus.<\/p>\n

And the CIBE is a big part of it all. CIBE will support collaborative projects for science and art students who will work with industry and manufacturing professionals to solve real-world prototype and manufacturing challenges for local businesses using the 3D-PFC.<\/p>\n

The \u201cHovey Hand\u201d remains central to the Center\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are using public domain hand designs as\u00a0templates and evolving them in our labs to yield\u00a0new and creative designs,\u201d Porter said in a news release announcing the grant. \u201cWe hope to partner with various local and global organizations to provide these devices to children. This service-learning opportunity uses community-based problems to help students engage with skills they have learned in new and humane ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ethical and humane application of new technologies is an important consideration in the education of a Wabash man.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Led by chemistry Professor\u00a0Lon Porter in partnership with\u00a0students in the CIBE, the College\u2019s 3D Printing and Fabrication Center is injecting some STEAM into STEM. It was the highlight of last spring\u2019s Alumni\u00a0Faculty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":1230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-news-and-notes"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2015\/09\/hovey-handlores.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1229"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1235,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1229\/revisions\/1235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}