School’s In For a 3D Printed Summer!
By Paul Mignone
With just over a week to go before the University of Melbourne’s inaugural 3D Printing Summer School, it can’t get any more exciting. The five-day intensive course by ITS Research is the first of its kind in Australia, and the mere whisper of it produced enough demand to re-run the course many times over.
From February 17th – 21st, twenty four students from various backgrounds will learn what it takes to become ‘Digital Blacksmiths’. David Flanders and Bernard Meade give a great explanation of the digital blacksmith concept at Melbourne University’s 3D Printing showcase in November last year. The traditional blacksmiths conceptualise an object and create it from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal. They then use tools to hammer, bend and cut the object to its desired shape and function.
Same profession, different tools…
The digital blacksmith replaces the hammer with a 3D printer to create objects, but new skills are required for the conceptualisation and design stages. The summer school aims to deliver those new skills to students, by teaching them how to use Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and 3D printing software. This will help Melbourne University researchers and the 3D printing community in developing ideas and producing better research outcomes.
Watch this space…
