Student work establishes Virginia Tech as a leader in 3D printing

As 3D printing has become more common, innovative design has risen steadily to take advantage of its capacity to prototype rapidly and produce objects anywhere a machine can be plugged in.

Virginia Tech has implemented campuswide efforts to make the technology easily accessible at locations such as the Newman Library, the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, and more. Within the College of Engineering, the Frith First-Year Makerspace is available specifically for new students, in addition to assorted facilities within departments. Students also have purchased their own machines, seizing opportunities for invention even in residence halls and apartment buildings.

Within the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Design, Research, and Education for Additive Manufacturing Systems (DREAMS) Lab is diligently pushing 3D printing to its next level. Lab director and L.S. Randolph Professor Chris Williams is a 25-year veteran of the discipline, having entered the field well before 3D printing became an academic buzzword. Since Williams arrived on campus in 2008, his team has not only produced a steady stream of innovative 3D-printed objects, they have also led initiatives to make better printers, pioneered new materials, and mentored the next generation of inventors.

From this unique environment, a landmark academic year has sprung. Since the start of classes in the fall of 2021, multiple teams of students have racked up a series of significant wins. Their work has introduced major cost savings for industry, catapulted new possibilities for work in space, supercharged engines, and enriched quality of life.

Winning international design competitions

One group of undergraduates, mentored by Williams and postdoctoral researcher Joseph Kubalak, caught the eye of NASA.

The nine-member senior design team, working directly out of the DREAMS Lab, picked up $75,000 in funding as part of NASA’s University Senate Research Committee grant competition to create a robotic work cell for the autonomous production of a 3D-printed drone. This would require not only producing individual parts but assembling them and creating a working final product.

The funding allowed the team to formalize their research idea into a challenge: to bring together computer-aided design, mechatronics and robotics, programming, and structural analysis to fabricate the drone chassis, embed the electronics, and scrape the completed drone off the plate. If all went well, the finished drone would be able to fly away from the plate and shoot a video of the next drone being created.

The yearlong process of senior design yielded just that. The team started as the fall semester opened, taking four months to create conceptual designs and prototype solutions. After the holiday break, they used the next five months to deploy the machinery that would print and assemble the final product.

The first drone flew away from the printer in April.

Completing a project this complex within such a short amount of time would have been monumental for an army of experienced engineers, but it is especially remarkable for a group of students working on their first degree.

“This is not your ordinary 3D printer,” said Williams. “This is an industrial robot that is programmed to both 3D print and assemble electronics to enable autonomous fabrication of complete mechatronic systems. That is a pretty big deal.”

Along the way, the team of undergraduates also took home the top prize at the Student Manufacturing Design Competition, held annually at North America’s preeminent and longest-running international forum for applied research and industrial applications in manufacturing and design. That challenge is administered by both the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Tadek Kosmal, the senior team’s project lead, commented on the wild semester he and his classmates experienced.

“A year ago, if you had told me that I’d be doing this, that I’d have this accomplished, I would have said no way,” he said. “Let alone in this short amount of time. Now, every time we show the video of the drone flying off the build plate, you can just see it in people’s eyes. Wow. I did that.”

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