By Matt Guerry | The Daily Collegian
New to Pattee Library’s Knowledge Commons are 32 MakerBot 3-D printers, whirring away inside the glass cabinet they call home. These printers, along with a new electronic device prototyping lab, are both part of Penn State’s new Maker Commons.
“We have every printer running 24/7,” Ryan Wetzel, manager of Penn State Media Commons, said. “And we have, so far, not run out of prints to print.”
Designs can be submitted online and can be submitted by all students and faculty at all Penn State campuses. They are then printed in biodegradable PLA thermoplastic, though there are dimensional limits to what can and can’t be printed.
“You can get access to it from wherever you may be,” Director of Education Technology Services Kyle Bowen said. “From your dorm room, from one of our campuses, or if you happen to be a student taking classes online or serving in the military, you still have access to the equipment.”
Makers Commons is made possible through a partnership between Penn State University Libraries, Educational Technology Services, Teaching and Learning with Technology and Information Technology Services.
Jill Shockey, manager of public relations and marketing for University Libraries, said the partnership is an efficient and responsible use of the resources that connect Penn State’s many libraries.
“We’re always sending materials across the commonwealth to our various library locations at our campuses. That system’s already in place,” she said.
Next door to the printing lab is the invention lab, where users can prototype electronic devices through the use of littleBits.
“littleBits produces these modular electronics that all snap together magnetically,” Wetzel sad. “They’re all color-coded, so you can’t really put them together incorrectly.”
Inputs, outputs, switches and more are produced by littleBits, allowing users to assemble a circuit of the device they wish to model. They function, in Wetzel’s own words, as “magnetic, electronic Legos.”
Wetzel said many recent designs were submitted by students for their art and engineering courses. Simple, non-moving objects can be printed, as can more complex prints with moving pieces.
“Essentially, you are printing what you would loosely call a machine that, when done, you just move the joints and it works,” Bowen said, producing a small, red robot figure that he said was printed as one piece.
Guests of Maker Commons are able to prototype electronic devices in the invention studio, primarily through the use of a startup technology called littleBits.
Bowen said that a few focuses of Maker Commons are allowing inquiring individuals to be able to research these technologies in a hands-on way, and to also assist those with entrepreneurial aspirations.
“One [focus] is supporting the integration of this type of activity as part of a course, so that faculty can sort of begin to introduce invention as homework: this idea that you can be creative in any discipline,” he said.