Schools embrace 3-D printing technology
Home-based version of printer 'on the cusp of changing global retail patterns', says artist
Daron Letts
Northern News Services
Published Friday, October 31, 2014
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
As the technology improves for 3-D printers and as prices drop, more Yellowknife and NDilo students are gaining access to the equipment, affording them new ways to put their imaginations into practice.
At K'alemi Dene School in Ndilo, Grade 8 student Aaron Flunkie, 14, is replicating a 3-D model of Pythagorus' Theorum using the school's 3-D printer, which was purchased for about $1,200 last year.
He is working on the project after school and plans to teach his peers how to accomplish similar projects next semester.
"What I'm excited about is the fact I have a student who is experimenting with the technology even before he is being taught, which shows a lot of initiative on his part," said computer instructor Kevin Laframboise. "When I went to school it was about doing a bunch of questions in a math book. Suddenly there is a practical reason for learning these formulas."
This week, Flunkie is also working on an original design for a model jet plane.
"I just do them for fun - the challenge," he said. "We're going to try to build a lock and a key to see if we can make a key that fits inside the lock. We're going to get there soon."
Sir John Franklin students have been similarly productive, designing an iPhone dock, a functioning recorder, blocks compatible with Lego, a Canon lens cap and other objects with varying degrees of utility.
"It's like your own personal toy box," said Rod Kennedy, the school's computers, services and trades teacher. "We run out of plastic a lot."
Students have gone through 16 cartridge refills since the computer lab purchased its first 3-D printer a little more than two years ago.
Next semester, Grade 12 student Siobhan Waldock, 17, who aspires to achieve a career in industrial design, plans to use the 3-D printer to build on the multi-media portfolio she is assembling as part of her application to several Ontario colleges and universities.
She imagines herself someday designing everything from "pencil sharpeners to computer mouses," she said.
She embraced the creative career goal in Grade 10 after taking a technology course at her Ottawa high school. She used a 3-D printer for the first time after transferring to Sir John in Grade 11.
"The fact that we have a 3-D printer is pretty nifty," she said.
"It's really cool."
The computer lab purchased its latest base-model 3-D printer for about $1,000 in September. The lab is trading its two-year-old printer with Range Lake School in exchange for a remote-controlled model airplane that can be flown indoors, said Kennedy.
Slightly higher-end models, which are priced between about $3,000 and $6,000, are faster and can print with nylon, allowing users to produce more durable products.
"Give it a few years and they'll be $50," Kennedy added.
Artist Brandon Marsh presented plastic-themed art exhibitions at The Gallery on 47th Street in fall 2012 and spring 2013 that featured work created on a 3-D printer, including a 15-centimetre model of the gallery.
Marsh's three-year-old Makerbot is three-times the size of the newer devices used in area schools and at around $3,000, costs about three times as much. It also took a lot longer to print objects, according to gallery owner Colin Dempsey.
Marsh, who is currently in Tallinn, Estonia, working for mobile phone game publisher Creative Mobile, used the printer to create jewelry prototypes for Northern artists Goota Ashoona and Jamie Look.
Dempsey, who teaches economics at Aurora College, said he is intrigued not only by the device's creative potential for artists, but also how it could change the retail and labour landscape.
"What are the implications on the economy of this idea that we could have machines that are just infinitely producing things at little or no cost and how do we adjust to this new system where we just don't need people to work and things don't cost much money - it's an interesting subject area," he said. "The potential commercial and industrial applications are really interesting and who knows what could come from it."
The home-based version of the technology is on the cusp of changing global retail patterns, added Marsh.
"3-D printing hasn't gotten big enough to threaten retail yet, but give it another 20 years and it will be. We'll see more multi-material printers and better quality and more complex prints being available to the average person," he stated in an online interview with Yellowknifer last week.
"All the cheap plastic items currently being manufactured in China and elsewhere will easily be printed from your home printer. Toys, household goods, even tools and replacement parts. The biggest benefit is for isolated communities. They'll no longer have to wait for something to be shipped in - they can simply print and customize the item on demand."
Several of the local stores that carry computer-related supplies - including Roy's Audio Video, Tamarack Computers, Staples and Wal-Mart - do not stock 3-D printers. Roy's Audio Video is able to special-order the devices, according to salesperson Jeremy Findlay.
"It's something that's on our radar as they become more affordable," he said. "It's all about what's going to sell. We are seeing more and more of them on the marketplace so it's not out of the realm of possibility that it would be something that we would carry."
