3D Printing can be useful for a myriad of reasons, from simply creating cute paperweights, bandages, and even finding use in major manufacturing. However, can it be used to create something that can fly? The second class challenge in ISCI 104 sought to test the theory out, in an activity appropriately named Make It Fly. The challenge was originally to create something that would fly, and possibly even launching equipment, using 3D printing, and get it to fly from the fountain in front of Burruss Hall to the statue of James Madison in front of Roop Hall. Unfortunately, due to the snow day on March 14th, the assignment was changed to getting something to fly from the top of the quad and just get the object to fly as far as possible. The actual “launching” spot is pictured below:
Due to the time constraints, and no in class time to work on the assignment, everyone opted out of any special launching equipment and focused on small hand held items that were familiar to the average person, and had at least a pretty good reputation for flying pretty far. In total there were 5 objects that competed, created by five different teams. There was a team made of Zachary Gordon, Brittany Braswell and Casey Dwyer, the team of Jenny Meyers, Carolina Francois, and Madelynn Danhires, team of Anna and Aidan Williams, the team of Ryan Osiniak, Melissa Meyers and Rebecca Wild, and finally me, Phillip Kesler, who competed alone. First up was my design:
The idea in practice was to recreate the Aerobie flying disc, a take on the classic Frisbee but instead of being the entire plastic circle would just be a ring. I created it using similar dimensions (10 inch diameter and 3 mm thickness) but scaled it down to fit on the Afinia print plate, so the result size was around 1.8x less. Unfortunately, the printer I selected to use to print had a un-level plate, so as seen the print would not properly hold together, and the nozzle would frequently brush up against the frayed filament, further breaking it. However, even with the many problems it had printing (this version was actually the best of the four that ended up being printed), it still flew close to the middle of the concrete circle pictured above, a little over 50 inches. Similar to my idea was Team Ryan’s object:
While the general discus/chakram themed idea was the same, the object was thicker and contained a much smaller middle hole. The disc flew decently, coming close to matching my own discus in flight length. However, as the picture shows, the disc did break on impact leaving no room for a second attempt flight. Moving past the discus examples was something much more simple coming from Team Jenny:
The idea was that nothing beats an old classic, and nothing is more classic for throwing than a sphere shaped ball. The design has no quirks or interesting tidbits, a ball has always been thrown fine and it was going to throw fine here. While one of their attempts was a comical throw right into the ground, the other attempt was much better, landing slightly beyond the middle of the concrete circle. As it stood, the traditional was better than the slightly innovative discus design. Directly compared with the simplicity and effectiveness of the sphere was the design from Team Anna:
The most complicated design, they designed a more classical slingshot. Not pictured were the small, almost horse shoe shaped pellets that were fired from the slingshot. Additionally, they attempted to use two different elastic slings, one a hair band, and the other a rubber band. The hair band did not fair very well, not even making it to the concrete circle on the quad. The rubber band fared better, but the pellet still only got to the outer concrete ring. Still, there was definite creativity and skill used for the design, which was greatly applauded.
Finally, came the design from Team Brittany. While they also went with the Frisbee idea, they went with the classical flying disc instead of the Aerobie variant. The design is fairly simple, using half circles for objects and holes they created a small, but flyable, Frisbee. The first throw was impressive, clocking in around a little over 57 feet to get the farthest of all the objects created. However, by sheer luck, we managed to meet a member of the ultimate frisbee team who offered to take a shot using their designed mini-Frisbee. The results were by far the winner, flying well over the concrete circle and onto the far right tree by the kissing rock. The classic Frisbee design proved to be the most valuable, and impressive, flying object.
With more time, these objects could have been transformed with propulsion and change in general form, but for a short project and old printers, the results were still extremely good. While the filament the printers used isn’t the plastic you would get from a ball, or a Frisbee, or a slingshot, the versatility of 3d printing let’s you take these designs and recreate them in your own vision. Even the most household of items can be made impressive with a little plastic filament, a lot of heat, and some nifty computer programs.
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