[MUSIC] Hi. I'm sitting outside of
the Illinois MakerLab, the world's first 3D printing
lab in a business school. I'll talk a bit more about why
we're here in just a moment. At this point, we've finished
the first week of our course. We've looked at what 3D printing is. And how 3D printers work. Now in the second week we're
transitioning to how this technology revolutionizes our economy and
the way we live. By allowing individuals, you and
me, to turn ideas into objects. So I thought taking a tour of the lab
would be a good place to start. Because over the past three years our
lab has helped thousands of individuals turn their ideas into objects. Also, we'll have a chance to
meet the lab director, Dr. Vishal Sachdev,
who in addition to running the MakerLab is also teaching the second course in the
specialization, 3D Printing Applications. Let's go inside, take a look at the lab,
talk to Vishal, please join me. Hi Vishal. >> Hey Erick, how are you doing? >> Very good. Good to see you. >> Good to see you too. >> Long time no see. >> Yep. >> So you're the Director
of the Illinois MakerLab. >> Yes.
>> Can you say a bit more about what you do? In this room? >> I'm a faculty here and
I'm also director so the first thing is helpin running the lab. So we are an open access lab that is
available to students, faculty, staff members and also community members who
come In here and turn ideas into objects. >> And we're open about what,
30 hours a week? >> Regular semester is
about 30 hours a week. We're open summers as well. >> And Vishal and I co-found the lab
about roughly three years ago. >> Three years ago, yeah. >> And over that time we have
done a lot of 3D printing. >> The good part is that we've been able
to put this facility out, of course, in a business school so the first question that people
ask is why in a business school? But the fun part is that once
you have this kind of a place, the ideas that people come up
with are absolutely amazing, and we get to witness all of that, and we'll
share some of those examples, as well. >> When we began this three years ago,
3D printing wasn't nearly as popular as today, so we really had no idea how this
lab would be used, or who would use it. And we found we sort of recently reflected
back and added up the impact of our lab. We've seen, what,
21,000 hours of printing? >> Yes.
>> Thousands of users, and by my estimate, somewhere in the neighborhood of
400 kilograms of plastic filament that our users have turned into objects. >> I think another thing that we've
been able to achieve is that we've attracted folks from bioengineering,
from architecture, from design, small business owners from the community
who come in here and say can you help us. And our students, so we are faculty,
but students from the lab, and you'll get to meet some of them, our gurus in
>> Some of the other but really we are just
making this possible and they get all the real
helping students get started. And also they are designers as well, so we've done some interesting
projects with other clients as well. >> So we have a range of use cases,
and we'll have individuals Such as engineering students who
know quite a bit about 3D printing. >> Yep.
>> Will come in with their file on an SD card. >> Yep. >> Perhaps already sliced and prepared for
printing and just put it off and walk away. >> Yeah.
>> Come back and pick it up. All the way to individuals
of perhaps our age- >> [LAUGH] >> Who are less technologically savvy and perhaps have never really heard much
about 3D printing, but they have an idea. >> Yeah.
And say I have idea for a cookie cutter. >> Yeah.
>> Could you turn that into an object for me? And we have our gurus,
our students who design this. >> And will print it and people walk away
with an actual physical object that was a short time before just a concept? >> So I would say 90% of
the work we focus on is on getting students in here
experience with printing. The charges are pretty low. The cost of failure is very low. And, we do workshops virtually
every day during regular semesters. And of course, we have two full
semester length courses as well. And we hope that this course that
we are putting online makes more of you get into making digitally. So Vishal, let's talk a little bit about
what we discussed what happens in the lab. Can we talk a bit about some
of the things that we made and the tools that we have to help
our users make these objects? >> So we have, if you can see this is
one of the Ultimaker extended printers. >> Yeah this is the big one. >> This is the big one. >> Extended as you can see we
>> We use it to make really big things like this-
>> [LAUGH] Yeah, to make a robot. >> This giant ultimaker robot. So we have now two of our
benefactor's Ultimaker. We have a collection of around,
what's it, 16? >> 16 printers. >> 16 printers, and we'll have in the I believe the fourth
course in the specialization. Actually, Matt Griffin and Ultimaker
will be going into details about how these printers are made and how they work,
what type of materials that they print on. >> If we can have a look at some of the
other examples that students have printed. Chess board right next to the printer
as well that's a nice thing that our gurus made over summer It's another
interesting that students in my class in Spring 15 worked
on was a project which is for enable the future organization where they
look for volunteers who have 3D printers. So spare capacity and who want to help
out to create hands that can help our children with a defect where
they don't have fingers from birth. These low cost hands that can be made for
about 20, $25 are a great way to put this kind of technology to
action for some social good as well. We'll have some more examples here,
and we can have a look at the in sort of our main workflow where
we have all the printers set up. >> So this is the main printer,
the UltaMaker 2, so the workhorse, we have a dozen
printers here on the work station. >> We have some of the small ones as well. >> The prints over here on the SD card. So actually all of these objects that
you see began as we discussed earlier, a digital file. And we have the smaller, the-
>> The Ultamaker to go >> Which is a smaller, cuter version of the Ultamaker and
portable. >> Much more portable, yes. >> Comes with a nice carrying
case that you can take with you. What do students do here
Vishal with the computers? What do they use them for? >> So here is when you need to,
students are free to come in and actually model here as well. So they have Tinkercad or
Fusion 360 or even Autodesk inventor. So they might sit here and
create the part, but many times students
would walk in with a file. And they need to get it from let's say the .stl format into .gcode
that the printers use. So converting that, aligning that,
slicing that all happens on the computers. >> Okay. >> So you can see on the wall we have
several of the products that students made here. And we'll, so
this is an interesting project. [CROSSTALK] This is the cookie cutter. >> [CROSSTALK] that we mentioned earlier. >> Yes. >> Can you tell us this story
about how this came to be and- >> Sure. Actually this, the lady who,
she went to Japan and she found a cookie cutter
that she really liked, but she wasn't able to buy more of
that once they started breaking. So one of our designers here, Scott, was
able to essentially recreate the design digitally and then print out perhaps
three iterations of the cookie cutter. For example, the original cookie cutter
didn't have such a thick handle, but the user said I need
something bulkier to hold onto. And for perhaps a little under, in terms
of design cost maybe about $25 extra. Now she has a digital design that
she can print as many copies for pretty cheaply or perhaps make
some more changes if she finds, hey this is a doesn't work so
well let me try and tweak something. >> So she has a backup copy,
>> She has a backup, we can Show some of the things
that students made in the lab. >> Okay.
>> So this is another example of a candleholder. So these are the three spaces
where you can put up a candle. So you can essentially
customize this any design. If it's a holiday or
some holiday relevant to you, you can make your own
candleholders as well. >> Great, and
this was one of our learners. >> Yeah, one of our learners made that. Another good example of we are again
highlighting the scope versus scale and ideas and
again turning an idea into object. One of the community members
here who have business where they are selling software essentially for
3D cameras. So they have,
they also buy some 3D cameras and give that as demo units
to their customers. But the challenge they were
facing was that this camera, they are external and we need to put
them on, either a laptop or a desktop. >> So, these are cameras for
the like the Microsoft Connect. >> Yeah, so it's just a small camera. >> About this big. >> Yeah.
And they go on top of a laptop. >> Or a desktop. >> Or a desktop, but
there's no easy way to connect it. >> Yeah, so you just gotta find something
to hold it on top of the screen. So initially they had
a design already developed that would sit on top of a laptop. And they needed a small run, so
they didn't want to go again and get a big run made, so we made some
about a hundred pieces of these for them to give to their clients. So this was a case in which if I
recall correctly, that our client was getting many of these piece
injection molded from China. >> Yes. >> But they only needed a few of them and it would be too expensive using
traditional manufacturing. And so they came to us and said, could
you run a small batch, a hundred or so. Actually, in this case,
the fellow had the digital design- >> He had the design, yes. >> And he just came in and printed it. So it was orginal factory. So this was the original design. And what do you have there? >> These were meant for laptop screens and
they work great for laptops, but he then had to give these cameras for
Somebody who was using these on desk tops. And desk top screens are not so
uniform at the back but you have all different kinds of shapes so
it doesn't sit easily so we [CROSSTALK] >> That wouldn't work? >> That wouldn't work. So we again looked at three or
four different kind of desk top screens. And again, our gurus here
designed actually two variants. This is one of them. So this has a different shaped
back which is not as curved so it can handle a straighter
back on the desktop screen. And also can handle desktop screens
where there is some other kind of other contours of the back. >> So this was a version of this. >> Yes, and we actually made two versions
of this, one for a particular kind of desktop, one a little smaller, and
the time it took is like half an hour. It took us twice this. But this technology is
going to become genetic and not so high tech maybe in a few years. But what the platform allows you to do is give you the capabilities
saying yes I can. And earlier you wouldn't think about it. So that shift that happens is what we
hope our learners will also see is that you can do it now. And it's possible and
it's possible to do it for one, five, ten, 50 pieces without
setting up a manufacturing unit. >> So, in addition to enabling
this I can do it mentality, we're also enabling someone
without the resources. >> True. >> So we can have a poor college student,
for example, can come in and use a lab like this with some
knowledge of 3D printing, and use of a free or low cost 3D
design program like Tinkercad And some might be in
the manufacturing business. >> Absolutely. >> It's that easy and
it's that inexpensive. >> Well actually, even if we look
at this in a business school. So some of the firms which are the
consulting firms, like Deloitte, and Ernst & Young. And all of these are looking at how this
technology can then change supply chains, can impact marketing, can impact pricing,
can impact in how you manage an inventory. So they need people who
understand what this can do and how this can change manufacturing. So that's only from in
terms of managing a firm. But if you look at from a perspective
of actually, from research and design or innovation. We have people who are saying, we need students who understand how
this changes the design process as well. >> So what you're saying, Vishal, is that
this technology is good not only for entrepreneurs or individuals who want
Halloween costumes or cookie cutters. But also for folks who want to
upgrade their skills For employment. >> Absolutely. >> And saying that we're seeing
an increased number of companies. I know some of the companies we've dealt
with, Walmart, British Petroleum, Deloitte to name a few, Granger, are interested in
>> In individuals who understand both
business and the 3D printing. >> Yeah, yeah
>> Any other stories you'd like to share with us? >> I think just to leave the our learners
with a message of what they will see in my course as well. >> Sure.
>> So, some of the concepts you talked about in terms of scale versus scope and
sustainability and complexity, or the ability to print complex
design without the need to assemble. We'll dealt a little bit more into that
and look at some case studies in detail. I will focus a little bit more also on. So what you'll get some skills and
these software, and the hardware module. But we also wanted to make you aware
of what the ecosystem is to go from and idea to an object. So we'll talk about some case
studies where 3D printing is now in your neighborhood. Talk about case studies with UPS and
3D Hubs, and finally before you start learning about software, we'll
talk about the design thinking process. So, you'll learn what is all possible
in course, you see some more case case studies and some more potential of
3D printing applied to different context. But before you start learning the skills, we'll give you a framework on design
thinking which helps you go from identifying a problem to
actually making a prototype. And then software and
then you learn how the hardware works and then you come in the Capstone where you
will apply all what you have learned in to an actual project you work on. >> That was really great,
thank you so much for you time. >> Thank you. >> And before we leave, I just want to point out that if you ever
find yourself in Champaign or Illinois. Please feel free to stop by our lab. We're open to everyone. We look forward to seeing you in
the rest of this weeks lessons, and hopefully Vishal will also see
you in his class down the road. >> Thank you
>> Great, thank you [MUSIC]