Imagine something.
Anything.
A made up creature from a movie, maybe, or a prototype for the next great invention.
Three-dimensional modeling and sculpting makes these things possible. Ideas become reality.
Mrs. Wendlandt has been teaching here at Heritage for twelve years in the 3D production industry for four years.
“3D is a great career that has been exploding with popularity,” she says. “Anybody can now design, invent or create. It’s no longer limited. It’s a great way to conceptualize and speed up production.” Industries like the entertainment, gaming, architecture, advertising and marketing, publishing, geology and science industries use 3D production.
Recently, Mrs. Wendlandt has acquired a 3D-printer by Makerbot to use at Heritage.
3D-printers make it possible to make a 3D replica of anything from the size of a small piece of jewelry or as large as a loaf of bread.
The first step requires the design and creation of a 3D model on the computer. Then, load in the file into “Replicator G” where things like size can be adjusted. And then it’s time to print.
The printer starts by pushing stored plastic through a tube into a mechanism called the extruder. The extruder melts the plastic, and then basically draws a picture, putting layer upon layer of plastic gooey, fast-drying plastic until the three-dimensional product is finished. It takes a long time, but pretty soon what was previously just imagination, then just a computer file, now has a shape. Now has weight in your hand.
It might be fun to watch an alien cartoon be born from computer world into ours, but 3D printing has some very important life-saving applications. Surgeons have been using printers to replicate body parts for reference before difficult surgeries. 3D printing has become so advanced that some printers are being use to produce replacements for actual bone for patients who have been through a serious injury. For the future, scientists are looking to replicate and produce usable organs.
And then, of course, one can make a 3D alien character come into the real world in their high school 3D production class.
It’s an amazing feeling spending time and effort to make something 3D, watching your imagination come to life.
It’s a completely out-of-this-world feeling to be able to hold it.