Day 0: Ideate -> Create
(Backdated: October 14, 2016)
According to industry analysts, the worldwide market for 3D printing is expected to more than double every year between 2016 and 2019, by which time worldwide shipments are expected to reach more than 5.6 million. Wow, that’s a lot of printers!
3D printers are great. They enable iterative development for the hardware world in the same way that agile development philosophies have revolutionized the software industry. Armed with a 3D printer and some basic design knowledge, anyone can print a replacement part for household components, fix a toy, or even print an entire quadcopter. Like any revolution, the rise of 3D printing does have some downsides. While 3D printing enables easy iterative development, each iteration generates a lot of plastic waste, which typically goes straight into the trash, costing the user money and hurting the environment.
As students at Olin College, we prototype A LOT! The engineering process at Olin is essentially ideate -> design -> prototype -> iterate (repeat as needed), with a fair amount of material waste in the prototyping phase. For our Principles of Engineering pr0ject, we chose to do something about this waste by developing a PLA filament recycler for the Olin fabrication space (pictured below).
At this point, we went out and did a lot of research on existing methods of PLA filament recycling. In summary, they exist at the very high end of the market, in kickstarter campaigns, and in hobbyists garages. All of the systems we found — from the very high end to the dude in his garage in rural Tennessee — operate in fundamentally the same way. And so, we decided to develop our own solution: durable enough to survive a college environment while approachable enough to fit within our class budget ($250) and enable Olin’s maker culture even more.
Moving forward, This much is clear:
- We have a great team of five determined Olin students with a wide range of skillsets.
- We have a vision for a product and a user group we know really, really well
- We have about eight weeks to make it happen.
Stay Tuned!
