March 23 2018- When Ajay and I begun brainstorming for our first project, 3-D Printing sparked our interest. At first it was not quite clear just what it was we were going to print, so we decided to explore the technology with some pre-made designs from Thingiverse.com. We really wanted to build something that was a true interest to us. We didn’t just want to go through the motions and hand in something mediocre. But, before we could even think about our project, we had to get familiar with the technology and programming around 3-D printing. The best way to do this was to start small. Our first print was a phone stand with an android logo in the middle. Even though it was simple enough, it had a legitimate function. It was quite successful, throughout the process we had no major issues and everything ran smoothly. While this gave us confidence in our abilities, we still felt we could do more to gain our best understanding of 3-D printing. So after this build, we followed it up by 3-D printing a pre designed pocket microscope off of Thingiverse.com. The print went extremely well with little to no issues. All that we are waiting on to complete the microscope are the lenses which Nathan has ordered. When finished, we will have a fully functional pocket microscope. After these prints, it was then time to familiarize ourselves with the program Tinkercad. Tinkercad allows us to customize our own 3-D prints, and is fairly simple to use.  Tinkercad is extremely intuitive so it gave us enough help that we wouldn’t need to rely on others, but still gave us free reign of our design.It took a few classes to understand the program to the full extent and become confident in our abilities. From here, we made a decision on our final project. We came to a conclusion that we would be 3-D printing an ukulele. We chose this because it tied in well with our own personal interests. Nathan plays musical instruments and in fact, loves to play the ukulele. I happen to love the tropical, exotic sounds that come from the instrument itself. From this point on, we focused our attention on the 3-D printed ukulele. We began designing our ukulele after taking some inspiration from a user on Instructables who previously printed their own ukulele. Starting from scratch, building an ukulele is extremely difficult which is why we used the basic concept of the design from a user on Instructables. That was where the similarities ended though as we re-worked the design to fit our needs and requirements. We then added the finer, more specific details (such as the frets) that would allow our ukulele function as a true one would. The ukulele however, could not be built as a single piece for it was too big for our 3-D Printer, so we split it into section. These would be built separately and then would be joined together via ridges. Epoxy would be used to join the parts together. To ensure that the ridges we designed would work the way we planned, we made a test piece (comprised of the spliced neck top and neck) and printed it. Sure enough, the test piece was a success with the ridge in the connecting region working as it should. With this completed, we had the information we needed to start our final print. At this point, the Makerspace class received a new 3-D printer with a heated. This is the printer we plan on using, along with engineer quality filament. We hope to get the print started next week without any issues. We have high hopes that the build will be a success.

March 23 2018- 3-D Printed Ukulele Pictures #1

March 23 2018-Project Proposal