Programming printers printed by 3D printers

Abstract

Mechatronics is a burgeoning new field that involves the synergistic integration of mechanical, electrical, and software engineering in the design and manufacture of industrial products and processes. It represents the modern evolution of traditional mechanism design techniques. Mechatronics proves to be a difficult subject to teach because it inevitably requires mechanical engineering undergraduate students to delve into realms and concepts with which they are inherently less comfortable. A primary pedagogical challenge associated with the teaching of mechatronics relates to devising new teaching styles and methods that seamlessly stitch together these traditionally separate engineering disciplines within the coherent context of modern mechanism design. Presenting students with hands-on laboratory experiments and open-ended design projects has proven to be an effective way to encourage them to synthesize the concepts that are covered within the traditional lecture environment. It is important to give students as much creative license as possible throughout this learning process. The more pride and agency that students can instill into their own unique solutions, the more invested and dedicated they become to working on the project. This paper specifically examines the development and successful implementation of a novel, final design project within a survey Mechatronics course that is taught each year to around a hundred 3rd-year Mechanical Engineering majors at the University of Virginia. A fleet of 2D ball-point-pen plotters, called "HooPrints," were designed and constructed out of plastic parts formed using state-of-the-art 3D printers. Students were then given blank 3 × 5 index cards and two design objectives: 1) Develop a manual, fly-by-wire "etch-a-sketch" mode through which each member of their team must write out his or her initials as quickly and neatly as possible and 2) Program their HooPrint to automatically/autonomously draw something interesting (and sophisticated in terms of programming technique) in under two minutes. © American Society of Engeneering Education, 2013.