ST124 - 3D Printer Lab

The biggest addition to the Dakota Ridge High School Engineering Program has been the creation and equipping of our new 3D Printer Lab.  Room ST124 use to be an office and then a storage room but now has been re-purposed to make room for students to be able to learn the skills and tricks of 'Additive Manufacturing Processes'.  Students in PLTW Introduction to Engineering Design, Computer Integrated Manufacturing, and CAD classes are able to design parts using Autodesk Fusion (or other 3D modeling software) and send their design to the print to be made.  These 3D models can then be used to present and/or test their designs.  DRHS FIRST Robotics Competition Team #1799 Wired-Up has been using the 3D printers to create functional parts for their competition robot, including sprockets, pulleys, and adapters.  

3D printers are one form of 'Rapid Prototyping' used by industry to quickly turn design ideas into physical models.  3D printing technology is quickly expanding to include new materials including nylon, silicone, concrete, aluminum, steel and titanium. This will likely be a major technology current student will be working with in their future careers.

The newest addition has been the installation of the Stratasys F170 3D printer, provided by tax payer money earmarked for Career & Technology Education in Jeffco.  This entry-level professional quality 3D printer has a fully enclosed, temperature controlled build space that eliminates almost all of the printing errors experienced with our older (cheaper) 3D printers.  It has two extruder heads, one for build material and one for support material, which allows it to build the most complex design imaginable.  It also allows mechanical parts to be print together, in ways they would not be able to be assembled otherwise.  The support material is dissoluble leaving only the build material when finished.