Category: Events

CVTC To Offer Symposium On Affordable Additive Manufacturing

Mark your calendar: Chippewa Valley Technical College (CVTC) is hosting the virtual 4th Symposium on Affordable Additive Manufacturing on May 14th from 9:00 A.M  to 12:00 PM (Central Time).

Check out the 3rd AM Symposium via CVTC

In a recent workshop at Tennessee Tech University (TTU), Kim Grady presented on how to use a 3D Pen in your classroom. She will conduct a similar workshop from this popular event at Chippewa on the 14th. You can learn more about the previous workshop here: Diving Into Additive Manufacturing With 3D Pen Technology. This workshop promises to help educators get a handle on 3D printing through the use of 3D pen technology. Link and info to register for the current workshop is listed at end of post.

“Kim uses the 3Doodler 3D pen in this workshop to demonstrate 3D printing concepts such as layering, joining, geometry and measurement, and adding function to an object. If you are asking: What is a 3D printing pen? — it is a device designed to allow you to make  PLA or ABS plastic 3D objects without a 3D printer. Essentially, the 3Doodler Pen is a handheld extruder.”  –AM News post on previous workshop

This event is a unique opportunity to talk and learn about recent additive manufacturing trends. CVTC is bringing people from the community, industry, national institutes, international organizations, and high schools to get to know each other and open up opportunities for collaboration.

There are recorded videos of previous symposia, developed modules, and more by visiting the Developing Resources for Enhancing Additive Manufacturing (DREAM) website.  If you are interested in joining this collaborative and interactive event please register here. As part of the National Science Foundation grant, Chippewa is providing a small $200 stipend for high school, middle school, or elementary school teachers who want to attend and participate.

For reference, in November 2020, MatEdU News (our sister publication focused on Materials Education and Materials Science), published a story about the second AM symposium organized by DREAM (NSF Award #1902501). You can read about it here: Chippewa Valley Technical College Offers Additive Manufacturing Symposium.

Challenges And Opportunities In Medical Device Additive Manufacturing

The TTU Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series is always packed with powerful insights and dynamic, experienced speakers (most of who are often professors involved with teaching about manufacturing and 3D printing / Additive Manufacturing – AM). This Spring 2021 Series is no exception. 

The first two lectures in Spring 2021 have been highlighting design, AM design trends, and design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM), but next week’s talk on shifts to the Challenges of Additive Manufacturing in the Medical Device Industry with Dr. Gaffar Gailani, Professor & Director of the Center of Medical Devices & Additive Manufacturing, in the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering Tech at the New York City College of Technology (also known as “City Tech,” the senior college within the City University of New York). 

Anyone can attend this free lecture, from anywhere via the Zoom video platform: tntech.zoom.us/j/432789883 at 11AM Central Time on Thursday, April 1.

Medical Device 3D Printing from Dr. Gaffar Gailani presentation at the TTU Spring Series 2021

Dr. Gaffar will be sharing about opportunities and obstacles for Medical Device AM. With his deep interest in Porous Media, Bone Biomechanics, and Biomaterials, this is sure to be a presentation that captures a wide range of students and faculty as well as entrepreneurs, researchers, and medical professionals. Some of the known challenges in Medical Device AM: 

  • Material Properties (Isotropy vs. anisotropy, Strength) what parameters are required to produce the desired material properties.
  • Motivation to use AM ( Speed, Complexity solver, Cost, Customization,…etc)
  • Optimization of AM for four critical factors
  • Cost calculation for large production.
  • Sterilization (polymers)

On his website and in a brief interview, Dr. Gaffar explained “the United States remains the largest medical device market in the world with a market size of around $110 billion (2016 figures). There are more than 6,500 medical device companies in the U.S., mostly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Medical device companies are located throughout the country but the states with the highest number of companies include California, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Michigan.”

You can read Dr. Gaffar Gailani Bio page at City Tech here or explore the Center Of Medical Devices and Additive Manufacturing (CMDAM) where he is the Founder and Director.

If you are interested in design or DfAM, you can read more about the TTU Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Spring 2021 Series that began with Dr. Jennifer Loy from Deakin University in Australia: 3D Printing Product Development Decisions with Dr. Jennifer Loy. The second talk was: Design Trends For Additive Manufacturing From Dr. Patrick Pradel at the Design for Digital Fabrication Research Group (D4DF) at the Loughborough Design School in the UK.

Please visit the College of Engineering at Tennessee Tech page for all the details on the Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series for Spring 2021.

3D Printing Product Development Decisions with Dr. Jennifer Loy

Dr. Jennifer Loy presents at the TTU Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series

On Feb 18, Dr. Jennifer Loy from Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, will present the 3D Printing Product Development Decisions webinar via the Tennessee Tech additive manufacturing lecture series.

Join from anywhere, via the Zoom video platform: tntech.zoom.us/j/432789883 at 11AM Central Time on Thursday, February 18.

Each semester, Dr. Ismail Fidan and team coordinate the well-respected TTU Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series. The Spring 2021 series kicks off with Professor Jennifer Loy who has taught industrial and product design for many years, and began her career in manufacturing when efficiencies were driven by standardization, but is now a convert to the unique capabilities of additive manufacturing (AM), presenting in this talk starting points on how manufacturers could approach integrating the technology into their business from a product design point of view.

Jennifer will share tips to help existing and new businesses understand what to 3D print, where it could be appropriate for them, and when it is not. Many businesses are finding that logic built up through years of conventional manufacturing practice and process no longer applies and it can be problematic when trying to reach an objective decision on what to make with AM and how to integrate it into production and business practice. Jennifer believes that in order for technology adoption to be successful, our understanding has to move beyond engineering to product design, production practice and logistics.

The aim of this short, illustrated presentation is to provide some initial guidance for a company considering adopting AM and starting points for evaluating product design options. These starting points and practical, realistic strategies and considerations are also the subject of a future book, going into greater depth, due to be published by Routledge in 2022.

Professor Loy introduced additive manufacturing into product design at Griffith university, initially at third year, then second and finally first year as she became convinced that to exploit its characteristics, product designers needed to explore its capabilities prior to those of conventional manufacturing. Jennifer is now Professor of Additive Manufacturing in the School of Engineering at Deakin University, Australia, where she leads a Masters’ specialization in AM.

Read the full bio and published works of Professor Jennifer Loy or the research center where she is active: Deakin Digital Design and Engineering Centre (3DEC).

If you are interested in the rest of the series, please visit the College of Engineering at Tennessee Tech page for the Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series for Spring 2021.

Join The 2020 Virtual National ‘Manufacturing Day’ Celebration at Tennessee Tech

Mobile 3D Printer TTU Ismail Fidan

Manufacturing Day is an event and special opportunity for manufacturers to showcase their workers and company, as well as to connect with future skilled workers. Like so many other events during COVID-19, the game has changed. In-person events are now virtual and hundreds have rallied their teams to shift to digital, virtual events (take a look at the map below). 

Tomorrow, the first Friday of October, MFG DAY organizers and participants will walk through virtual doors and start new conversations. The goal for all manufacturers is to foster interest in manufacturing careers. Tennessee Tech University (TTU) is leading the way with a MFG DAY Zoom launch at 10am Central time (45 minutes).

Here’s a snapshot of what they will be doing in this fast-paced session where you will hear from each expert:

  • Ismail Fidan, Professor, Manufacturing and Engineering Technology (Welcome)
  • Additive Manufacturing Applied to “Wicked” Interdisciplinary Healthcare Problems
    • Robby Sanders, Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering
    • Melissa Geist, Professor, School of Nursing
  • Wire + Arc Additive Manufacturing for High Performance Materials
    • Duckbong Kim, Assistant Professor, Manufacturing and Engineering Technology
  • Cobots in Manufacturing
    • Stephen Canfield, Professor, Mechanical Engineering
  • Additive Manufacturing of Multi-Material Parts
    • Seymur Hasanov, Ph.D. Candidate, Mechanical Engineering
  • Composite Parts Manufacturing using Fused Filament Fabrication Process
    • Ankit Gupta, Ph.D. Candidate, Mechanical Engineering
  • Large-Scale Additive Manufacturing of Cement-Based Structures
    • J. J. Biernacki, Professor, Chemical Engineering
  • The Strange Rheology of Cement-Based Pastes
    • Babajide Onanuga, Ph.D. Student, Chemical Engineering
  • Using Hydrogels in Cement-Based Printing Pastes
    • Hajar Taheri-Afarani, Ph.D. Candidate, Chemical Engineering
  • 2-D Stationary Computational Printing of Cement-Based Materials
    • Abdul Salam Mohammad, Ph.D. Student, Chemical Engineering

Get ready to answer some fun manufacturing quiz bowl questions during the event! Winners will receive surprise SME gift items. Original MFG Day PDF flyer is here.  You can also see the full TTU TechBot Mobile 3D Printer video from where the above is captured.

Thanks to the SME team for their support and helpful post that shows how you can find a virtual Manufacturing Day event near you. Of course, you can attend virtually from anywhere, but sometimes you want one closer to home. Check out their post and here is that screenshot that shows there are no shortage of events happening tomorrow on October 2nd.

Note: On the SME site is the “Attend an Event” button and you can see the full, interactive map full of MFG Day 2020 events, mostly virtual, all around the USA.

Tennessee Tech Announces Fall 2020 Additive Manufacturing Lecture Series

Fall 2020 Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series
Fall 2020 Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series

The College of Engineering at Tennessee Tech is organizing its tenth Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series for Fall 2020.

Thanks to Dr. Ismail Fidan and his team — they have again arranged an amazing group of expert speakers from around the world.

The web-based presentations are shared via the free Zoom platform. On the dates listed, simply visit this Zoom URL ( here it is in plain text should the link not work correctly: tntech.zoom.us/j/432789883 ) at 11am Central Standard Time and you can listen in to the 30-minute lecture/discussion. Mark your calendars for one or all of these excellent presentations.

Thursday, Sept. 17

Mass Production and Decision Making with Low Cost Additive Manufacturing for Institutions and Small Businesses

Presented by Eric N. Wooldridge, PE, RA, Professor, Somerset Community College, Kentucky

TTU Lecture Series _Olaf Diegel

Thursday, Oct. 8

Design for AM: The Key to the Industrialization of AM

Presented by Olaf Diegel, Professor, University of Auckland, New Zealand

TTU Lecture Series _Steiner KilliThursday, Oct. 29

New Product Development for AM: Methods and Tools

Presented by Steinar Killi, Professor, Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway

TTU Lecture Series _Ian GibsonThursday, Nov. 19

Machine Learning in AM

Presented by Ian Gibson, Professor, University of Twente, Netherlands

Dr. Fidan has been using the Zoom platform for years and leads out in online learning methods. You can read more about his complete shift, thanks to COVID-19, to innovative, distance learning approaches:

Online Learning In The Age Of COVID-19 And Beyond

You can also access the full archive of past additive manufacturing webinars here:

Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Lecture Series Spring 2020

The Golden Eagle Additively Innovative Virtual Lecture Series is partially funded by the NSF Award 1601587, “AM-WATCH: Additive Manufacturing-Workforce Advancement Training Coalition and Hub.”

We make regular updates on the Materials Education Facebook page (sister organization to TEAMM).