Shapeways Catches Us Up on Recent EDU Grants for

Innovative 3D Printing Projects

In an effort to encourage more 3D printing in

higher education, twice yearlyShapewaysoffersfive $1,000 grants to college professors and students
whose work push(es) the boundaries of the materials and technology available in the 3D printing. It
looks as if this years winners plan to do just this, push boundaries, and Shapeways blog summarizes
their projects. Shapeways also talks to a few of last years winners to find out how the grant helped
their own work, and to check out their projects progress in general.
In the past, grants have supported a range of academic fields, including mathematics, applied
psychology, and product design. This years winners also reflect quite a diverse range of academic
subjects and 3D printing applications. For example, one winner, Shawn M.V. Jones, will use grant
money to prototype a scuba flipper for amputees that can also function as a prosthetic on land.Pablo
Gonzalez, from New York Citys Fashion Institute of Technology, willuse the grant toward his senior
fashion show where he will display 3D scanning along with printing and traditional fabric draping.

[Image: African Fossils]

James Madison Universitys Jonathan Gerhardt will be transforming complex mathematical knot
studies from theoretical 2D problems into tangible objects mathematicians can hold in their hands.
Gerhardts fellow grant recipient, Akshay Goyalfrom Harvard University, has an equally complex
project. His Soft Tectonicsinvestigates systems for design and production oftransformative objects
through a study of structural collapse and functionally graded material.
The last grant winner is Tom OMahoney of the University of Manchester, whoaccurately
reconstructs human fossils for use in research. He makes this research available through the open
source websiteAfrican Fossils. Finally, Shapeways talked to three recipientsfrom last years pool of
winners to hear about their progress.
Shanna Chan, Catherine Zheng and Melissa Zuckers Lunar Gala 2016 Strain Abraxasispartof a
twenty-year-old student organization at Carnegie Mellon University called Lunar Gala. This
organization sponsors an annual show with a different theme each year. According to the website:
Lunar Gala is a student-run organization at Carnegie Mellon University invested in cultivating interdisciplinary creative talent within the community. Every February, student designers, models,
dancers, videographers, motion designers, technicians and a creative team bring their skills together
to produce a fashion show.

The students who worked on Lunar Gala 2016 Strain Abraxas reported to Shapeways that 3D
printing was essential for their project because their finale dress used intricate parametric
patterning impossible to achieve without 3D printing. They also explained to Shapeways how the
grant helped the project overall:
The Shapeways Grant allowed us to increase our budget and physically be able to 3D print the more
detailed pieces within the last look. This helped us realize our whole conceptof our line, which
depended on a transformation of flowing geometric lines into more complex parametric formWe
explored alternate ways of fabrication and learned to expand our knowledge of both digital
fabrication and mixed media design. We pushed ourselves to learn and use digital modeling software

and to design various design iterations that allowed for any buffer room within modular 3D printed
pieces.

No doubt this years grant recipients will utilize these EDU 2016 grants to realize their own 3D
printing visions, and we look forward to seeing the work produced by this years recipients ata later
date. Discuss in the 3D Printing Shapeways Grant Money forum over at 3DPB.com.