Art historians and high school robotics clubs are just two of the many groups benefitting from faculty and staff expertise in 3D printing at the Indiana University Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering in Bloomington.
An exhibition at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece, features an interactive opportunity for visitors using high-quality, 3D-printed reproductions of original sculptural fragments printed at IU. Through June 29, visitors to "Imag(in)ing Samothrace: From Homer to the HoloLens" can reconstruct the "pediment of the Hieron" - a sculptural feature of the Sanctuary of the Great Gods, a temple on the Greek isle of Samothrace - using those reproductions.
Another project supported by the labs is led by Goren Gordon, a Luddy School associate professor of informatics, who is using the school's 3D-printing resources to rapidly prototype designs for a social robot that can be built with off-the-shelf parts and supplies for under $300.
"I would say our labs are top tier," said Nicole Miller, director of the 3D Fabrication and Design Inquiry Labs at the Luddy School, which produced the reproductions. "Many of our printers are not only large format but offer very high-resolution finishes. If we're given high-quality scans, we can reproduce objects with remarkable fidelity."
Miller said that converting the intricate sculptural elements of the pediment fragments into a physical "puzzle" for exhibition visitors is apt since archaeologists have long debated how to properly reconstruct the fragments. The 3D-printed reproductions offer everyone the chance to apply their problem-solving skills to the question.
"This collaboration is about taking an intangible object - a file of an ancient sculpture that has been 3D scanned for the purposes of preservation - and turning it back into a tangible object that people can pick up and handle," she said. "It's the sort of project that we're well set up to assist with."
The reproductions were created in ProtoLab, one of four makerspaces on the IU Bloomington campus that comprise the 3D Fabrication and Design Inquiry Labs. ProtoLab, in Myles Brand Hall, is open to people across campus. It includes some of the Luddy School's most advanced 3D-printing technology, capable of printing larger objects than other printers, with high-quality detail and surface finish.
Altogether, the Luddy School offers over 6,000 square feet of makerspaces, with 41 3D printers; a CNC router; a CNC mill; five laser cutters; a waterjet cutter; and traditional tools such as drill presses, a circular saw and a band saw. The other makerspaces are the Luddy Fab Lab, in Luddy Hall; Innovative Lab, in Teter Hall, available 24/7 exclusively to members of the Luddy Living Learning Community; and Luddy Workshop, an analog fabrication space for Luddy faculty and staff.
The labs are a resource for students in their coursework - offering access to tools in which many employers expect proficiency - as well as faculty, who use the technology in their research, teaching and service.
The goal of Goren's project, currently in its early phases, is to provide instructions and lesson plans to pre-college maker clubs, which can use them to print and build their own social robots.
"This is going to be something that high school or even middle school students in STEM can build by themselves start to finish with a 3D-print file and some links to resources on Amazon," said Gordon, whose expertise includes the intersection of technology and creativity in children's education.
Gordon also developed the robot's software, which would enable it to facilitate group discussions. His previous research has shown that virtual agents operating in a similar manner can support online learning by encouraging more equal participation in discussions.
"Even more significant than the low cost is the fact that this robot is designed to provide students a true sense of ownership," he added. "If a part breaks, they can fix it because they built it from scratch."
The open-source, "no-code" design of the robot also ensures that it's easily modifiable, he said.
Miller said that Gorden asked the 3D Fabrication and Design Inquiry Labs to use lower-quality consumer-grade printers to guarantee printability by student groups.
The reproduction sculpture fragments in ProtoLab. Photo by Chris Kowalczyk, Indiana University
Although faculty and students can submit orders for 3D-printed parts through the 3D Fabrication and Design Inquiry Labs' web portal, Miller said its staff are also available to consult on how to best use the lab's resources to advance faculty or students' goals.
"We support tons of curriculum and research with our labs," she said. "Students especially are printing all kinds of things. We see everything you can imagine: an arm, a ball joint, a connector, and plenty of objects that we often can't even identify.
"We're helping solve problems with 3D printing all of the time."
IU's involvement in the Athens art exhibit was facilitated by Bernie Frischer, a digital archaeologist and emeritus professor of informatics at the Luddy School.
