Exploration with 3D Printing

As a product/fashion designer and frequent gift giver, 3D printing has become a regular activity in my life. While I am still learning about CAD and the different types of 3D printing, I have explored so different ways of designing shapes, printing techniques, and treatments of 3D prints. 3D printing is not only reshaping my life; this new industry of supply chain is reshaping industries all over the world. Richard D’Aveni, a professor at Dartmouth University, has spoken at conferences, written articles, and created podcasts how 3D printing will disrupt mass manufacturing process as we know it. Probably the most beneficial part of 3D printing is the accessibility of material and parts if creates. No longer do people have to order the object they need and then wait weeks for it to arrive in the mail. In a few hours of designing anyone can create the exact shape they need and print it out to use later that day. 3D prints are helping all types of industries all around the world. For example, a company in the Middle East is printing free wheel chairs for people with disabilities. Adidas is probably the biggest company to potentially disrupt an industry’s supply chain. They have launched a 3D printed outsole shoe, and hoping to further its accessibility. Their long term goal is to have 3D printers in Adidas stores allowing customers to step onto a machine that would scan their footprint and 3D a shoe that perfectly contours their foot right in the store. With most of the footwear industry’s manufacturing occurring in China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh companies have to plan for new product months even years in advance to give manufacturers enough to create, package, and shipped back the product while also potentially planning for time to ship the product back if it does not meet the companies’ standard. 3D printing eliminates this process for the outsole saving both time, resources, and money.

Recently I attended a two day lecture and workshop from fashion designer Sylvia Heisel. Sylvia’s company 3D prints dress, jackets, and jewelry and was recently ranked the Top 25 most influential women in technology in New York. She brought in samples of her work ranging from fabric which she had 3D printed on, rings and necklaces, and full garments like dresses and jackets. What I found most impressive about her work was the precision of her designs. She considered every detail about the garment from how to pattern the dress in the most efficient way, how the wearer would feel, and how the product could be recycled or repurposed. She presented ideas about how 3D printing is helping move society towards a more sustainable manufacturing process because it allows manufacturers and designers to print exactly what they need, which helps eliminate excess waist. While not all 3D prints are made with environmentally friendly materials, so much of the damage we do on the Earth stems from throwing away so much harmful products without having a system to recycle them. She challenged the listeners to critically exam the lifecycle of their creations, meaning what was going to happen to our garment or design after they had been sold and warn.

The second day was a workshop where we learned how to design stl files on TinkerCad and print them on a MakerBot 3D printer. The group got to design a “button” or small object to be printed out and we watched it get printed right in front of us. While I have experience in other CAD software, it was incredible to see how Sylvia designed her patterns on Fusion 360. I would have never thought to design the garment pattern on a software before.

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For this specific assignment, I was able to do a few different prints.For my first round of printing, I printed out a series of planters that followed the theme of video games. One box represented Pokemon, one for Nintendos, and one for Zelda. I found a tutorial on how to design the layout for these planters and followed the videos instruction in order to create my own file of it. For time reasons I had to scale down the size of each planter by 50%, so I could fit all of the planters on one print and print in under a day. I was so excited for these prints to come out. When I returned to the library, I was delighted to find that the prints had come out beautifully. Once I broke off the raft, I started to sand each part of the planter. I sanded the exteriors so the resolution of the print came out more clear and the texture of each box was not so rigid. Once I finished sanding, I painted them with three layers of white acrylic primer. I had printed the planters with green PLA, so the white primer allowed me to paint the planters without showing the green plastic base. After a few layers of color, the planters came out wonderfully.

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The next round of prints I created was inspired by the 3D prints Sylvia presented. I wanted to design a 3D printed fabric sample that could move like fabric while having the dexterity of plastic. Once again I found a tutorial on how to CAD a fabric that had the pattern of chainmail, which allowed the print to move like fabric. Unfortunately I did not factor in the scale of the chainmail in considering the time to print the fabric. When I imported the fabric into the MakerBot it said that it would take 34 hours to print the fabric. I scaled down the print to 60%, which did make the print time shorter. Unfortunately, the size of each chain link became so small that it prohibited the fabric from being able to move like I had planned. The texture still came out great so I will have to schedule another time to go print this fabric. I also plan on testing out interrupting the print so I can wedge a layer of fabric in between a pattern I’m printing.