{"id":56227,"date":"2016-07-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2016\/07\/19\/from-digital-to-three-dimensional\/"},"modified":"2022-09-02T17:03:27","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T22:03:27","slug":"from-digital-to-three-dimensional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2016\/07\/19\/from-digital-to-three-dimensional\/","title":{"rendered":"From digital to three-dimensional"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brandan Lew is making a model of his brain.<\/p>\n

His actual, individual brain.<\/p>\n

Lew, a first-year medical student on the M.D.\/Ph.D. track, had an MRI taken on a previous rotation, and now is watching one of UNMC’s 3-D printers use the file to build his brain, bit by plastic filament bit.<\/p>\n

He’d just gotten done with an exam, on a recent morning, and stopped by the McGoogan Library of Medicine to see how his brain was coming along. It might take 20 hours, total.<\/p>\n

And sometime during those 20 hours, Lew also joined the UNMC Makers, a student group dedicated to 3-D printing. The Makers have an official workspace in the McGoogan Library, sharing an office with the 3-D printers themselves. In addition to infrastructure, the printers and group enjoy generous funding from the library.<\/p>\n

“From the very first time I met the students, I knew this was a student group we wanted to support,” said Emily McElroy, the library’s director. “Using technology funds, we were able to follow through by ordering a 3-D printer and scanner. Since then, we’ve increased the space to accommodate additional printers and related technology.”<\/p>\n

And the Makers are invigorated by all the possibilities the technology provides.<\/p>\n

“There’s almost nothing we can’t do,” said Tim Bielecki, a graduate student in the Cancer Research Graduate Program.<\/p>\n

If you have a design, the Makers – and printers – can make it. Need a prototype? Let’s get to work.<\/p>\n

Or, need one lousy replacement part for something in the lab, but you’d have to buy a whole set – at high cost – to get it? Or worse, they don’t even make that model anymore?<\/p>\n

The Makers can make one, for pennies on the dollar.<\/p>\n

The items they make can be as simple as a missing spare part or as complicated as the human brain.<\/p>\n

Surgeons can make 3-D models off of MRIs, then take their time to study what they will be working on before opening the patient.<\/p>\n

Seeing the engineering behind everything – in part, by having to make it – is exciting, Bielecki said.<\/p>\n

“That’s the thing about science,” he said. “It’s fun to learn how to do things – why you do things.”<\/p>\n

And part of their mission is passing on that love of science to even younger students.<\/p>\n

The Makers are taking lenses from disposable cameras to make inexpensive microscopes for distribution to local elementary schools.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Will Payne, an officer of UNMC’s 3-D Maker’s Club, prepares one of the competitors’ presentations on the iEXCEL center’s MultiTaction Wall, behind the 2016 Invent-a-Thon trophy, a 3-D-printed model of a light bulb that is lit with LEDs.\n<\/p>\n

Outreach efforts continued during the recent Nebraska Science Festival, when the Makers and McGoogan Library teamed up with UNMC’s technology transfer and commercialization office, UNeMed, to sponsor the inaugural 3-D Printing Invent-a-Thon.<\/p>\n

Participants had to come up with a device developed and 3D-printed in less than a day. All three participating teams were from local high schools and were tasked to deliver a solution that would help people who suffer from multiple sclerosis. All teams were given two days to research the problem, develop a concept and then design and print a prototype.<\/p>\n

Harrison Pruitt, 17, and Ryan Hendrickson, 17, of Millard South High School, won first place for an exoskeleton that would help MS patients walk more easily. Their prototype resembled a jointed leg brace with a solid support strapped to the outside of the leg, from the heel to just above the knee. Their device would include servomotors that would provide the wearer powered-assistance when walking.<\/p>\n

The runner-up designs also focused on helping MS patients’ difficulty with walking. One team proposed a counter-balancing device that would help offset the wearer losing balance. The other device was a self-contained seating system that strapped to the legs so the wearer could sit and rest virtually anywhere.<\/p>\n

“One team had their design and was ready to print in four hours,” said Tyler Scherr, a member of the Makers. The 30-year-old UNMC grad student, who completed his Ph.D. this spring, said, “It made me feel old.”<\/p>\n

The winners’ trophy was 3-D printed, of course. It looked like a large light bulb mounted to a thick base. LED lights inside the base gave the bulb a soft glow.<\/p>\n

Hendrickson said his teammate, Pruitt, should be the one to take the trophy home.<\/p>\n

“He needs a lamp,” Hendrickson said.<\/p>\n

Now, you can 3-D print them. And brains. Spare parts. Before long, human spare parts, too. The possibilities are endless.<\/p>\n

All you need, Bielecki said, is a file, and the printers and the Makers can help make it a reality.<\/p>\n

If you need to make something, ask the Makers. They’re at the library. Sixth floor.<\/p>\n

“The students inspire the campus community by imagining ways to solve problems using these technologies to meet their research and learning needs,” McElroy said. “Supporting the UNMC Makers has been a highlight for me and everyone else in the library.”<\/p>\n<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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