Just six months since opening Latchford Barracks' design and technology hub, MakerSpace has enabled a couple of ambitious sergeants to create some valuable training aids, saving Defence thousands and greatly enhancing trainee learning.
MakerSpace site supervisor Ryan Aisbett said their work had shown initiative, passion and ingenuity that he hoped would inspire others at Army Logistic Training Centre.
"The biggest thing is it shows their problem-solving," Mr Aisbett said.
"They've seen an issue they have in their work and they've used the tools they have at their disposal to solve the problem.
"What they've done is hugely valuable and it's going to make the trainees much more capable."
The first piece to come to fruition was from preventative medicine Sergeant Corey Finley, who created a scaled replica of the 10,000-litre MAN 121 water pods.
As an instructor at the ADF School of Health, Sergeant Finley teaches trainees to test and manage water purity for human consumption.
"For training, we usually just use a tub because we can't get a tanker or anything here," Sergeant Finley said.
"So I came up with the idea to print a replica of a tanker. It holds 12 litres, so it's scalable. To get all the measurements, you just move the decimal point.
"It looks very similar to a 10,000-litre pot we actually have in service, so it's getting trainees to visualise what they'll need to do. It's quite a big process and water's extremely important because if you don't do it correctly you can take out a brigade asset - hundreds or even thousands of people."
'It's getting trainees to visualise what they'll need to do. It's quite a big process and water's extremely important because if you don't do it correctly you can take out a brigade asset - hundreds or even thousands of people.'
The water pod will be put to use in November this year when Sergeant Finley takes an initial employment training course out field. By then several identical pods will be issued to groups to manage.
"The trainees have to go through the process of actually cleaning the receptacle, then monitor the water," Sergeant Finley said.
"Overnight, the directing staff may go through and put different chemicals or ions in that trainees will have to investigate. It's to get them to think, 'I've got this issue, I've got high ions or high nitrates or something like that, what is the so-what from that?' It could be anything from having a long-lasting effect on soldiers or we can still drink it, but it's aesthetic isn't great, or we have to dump all the water and refill it."
The other sergeant giving the 3D printer a workout at MakerSpace is medical technology manager Sergeant Tim Binyon, who is in the research and development phase of creating a 'wound-packing cube'.
Currently, trainees are taught to pack ballistic, shrapnel and a wide range of other wounds using cumbersome, expensive mannequins. The wound-packing cube lowers costs and increases the variety of wounds.
"I tell a student, 'while we're going through your haemorrhage control, you need to pack multiple wounds in this cube that represent a part of the body'," Sergeant Binyon said.
"The intent would be they use their packing gauze to fill a hole in the cube, but then there might be blood exiting from another.
"So you'd potentially have to pack from two different directions, finding the entry and the exit wound."
Sergeant Binyon has worked through several prototypes trying to achieve a structure that is strong but flexible, flesh-like and durable, all while abiding by copyright laws.
Once achieved, multiple packing cubes will be created for training, taking the pressure off using mannequins and broadening learning by featuring wider varieties in wounds, allowing trainees to extend their skills.
