3D Printing for Scientific Applications (Live Demo)

Additional Fees Apply

-- visit the Short Course Program section for more information.

The availability of low-cost, high-quality 3D printers has led to the rapid adoption of 3D printing by practitioners in numerous fields, including the life sciences. Printing technologies and materials have expanded beyond those involving polymers and metals to include paper, cells and other biological materials, enabling many new and unexpected applications.

In this course we will cover the process of creating 3D-printed objects, with an emphasis on applications in the life sciences using Fusion Deposition Modeling (FDM) printers. We will survey the state-of-the-art of 3D printing and then discuss the practical considerations of creating your own objects, from initial conception to physical reality. We'll demonstrate several techniques for generating 3D models, discuss how to optimize models for printing, and compare printing techniques and material options. Attendees will generate 3D models using publicly available software on their personal computer. Live demonstrations and hands-on time using 3D printers will be featured throughout the course.



Who Should Attend:

Scientists, engineers, and technologists who:

• Are interested in understanding the process of modeling and creating 3D-printed objects.


• Would benefit from generating custom objects to streamline their bench work and augment laboratory automation hardware.


• Who want to rapidly create prototypes, going from idea-to-object in one day.

How You Will Benefit From This Course:

• Learn techniques used to model 3D objects using free software packages (bring your laptop!). You will also learn the basic of slicing software, which digitizes 3D objects for printing.


• Learn about the variety of printing technologies and materials available and how they best apply to a variety of applications


• Learn design and printing best practices as well as lessons learned from printing experts


• Watch a live demonstration of a 3D printer create objects modeled in class!

Course Topics:

• 3D printing technologies, materials, and software


• Model and mesh generation (with students creating designs using freeware on their laptops)


• Material and printer selection to best fit an application


• 3D printing applications for engineering solutions and laboratory automation fixes


• How to take a production part design and adapt it to a 3D-printed prototype


• Horror stories, failures, and lessons learned - what can go wrong in 3D printing