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(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm (indistinct) 3D printing is something we hear about a lot these days, but what exactly is 3D printing?

What is it capable of, and how can it make people's lives better?

On this episode of digging deeper Penn State President, Eric Barron, talks at John Gersh Hinson director of the Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship program.

Nicole single Annie, media commons coordinator for TLT and Ryan Wetsel, manager for creative learning initiatives.

- So thank you for joining me, I really appreciate it.

Fascinating topic.

Now, I'm gonna introduce you in a strange way.

I don't know whether or not you've ever heard of the cartoon, the Jetsons that was in the early 1960s?

I sort of Marvel at the fact that the Jetsons pre-staged a great deal.

They had little robots that were vacuuming the house.

George Jetson talked to his phone on his wrist which (laughs) we can do today.

And they had what appears to be a printer whenever they wanted anything.

Maybe you could just start not necessarily reflecting on the Jetsons, but what is a 3D printer and is that something that's gonna be in your house someday?

John, maybe you want to begin?

- Sure, such an interesting question.

I think it's really similar to, I don't necessarily think it's the 3D printer maybe that we have today or the ones that are sitting on our desktops that every person needs there.

There's still there's a lot of things that you need to know how to do, in order to be able to develop or design the thing that then gets printed.

But so it may not be in every room, it's kind of that idea like we were going to have computers in every refrigerator.

It was gonna be, and we never quite got to that.

We found other uses for computing that we use nonstop all day long.

It's kind of similar with 3D printers as well.

There's a lot that it can do to create equity in this world.

The beauty of the Jetsons was that everybody had access to products.

whatever they needed, whenever they need it everybody had access wherever they were.

And through for me, and for the work that I do, that's kind of the really cool thing that's happening with 3D printers.

Is it just creates worldwide access to supply chains, that honestly most people in the world don't have complete access to that.

We'll kind of see it more there where like they'll exist in all communities or most communities, but maybe not every single hassle.

That's my 2 cents on it at least - I don't know why everybody thought we'd have a computer in the household, and not everybody does, but there are a heck of a lot of them.

But so physically, what does a 3D printer do?

- So a 3D printer works in the world of additive manufacturing.

Which means that in most cases, especially many of the common models that people are familiar with, is that it, it melts down plastic through an extruder.

Then layer by layer, It builds up a 3D model into a physical object.

The printer will continue to sort of moving around a print bed and laying down a layer of melted plastic.

In many cases, but there are so many different kinds of materials that could be used now for 3D printing.

And then once it's created, it has layered up to four made fully 3D physical model of where you began right in any sort of 3D modeling software.

It's really interesting in that for relatively low cost of this filment and really just the amount of time that it takes to print, which can be several hours depending on the complexity of the object.

You can have maybe a perfect representation of what was on your computer screen, just moments ago.

- It's fascinating to sit there and think about so it really is.

Three-dimensional printer just like your copy machine.

It's just not a flat surface.

What are in the university today?

How do we have a lot of 3D printers?

Do we, where are they and what are they doing?

- Be here in and make her comments as part of media comments and we're warehouse under the teaching and learning with technology unit here under Penn State IT we have a 3D printer farm that's available.

It's free to print for students, faculty, and staff, and we have 30 3D printers in our farm.

They're constantly either they're print actually printing right now as I speak - And there, and so what types of.. this implies that it's not too difficult to use.

What does a student or someone else who would actually want to print, something like that?

What are sort of the resources, what do they physically do in order to create the object?

Do you have Nicole some examples of what students are printing?

- Yes, actually I'm right now, one of the bigger projects is coming through the maker Coments is the Penn state theme park engineering group.

They've designed their own rollercoaster.

They're 3D printing it, the track pieces so that they can put them together.

And then they're gonna have a rollercoaster model, that they've created from designs that they came up with in their own heads.

it allows students to create something in their minds, either individually or collaboratively and create a 3d model of that idea.

We teach here in our workshops and make our comments we teach Tinkercad is as kind of that introduction to 3D modeling.

It's something that's pretty intuitive, we give a few examples of how to create what security for 3d printing specifically.

They can take that digital idea and then make it physical bring it into the physical world, using the 3D printers here that we have in our, as part of our services.

- So computer design software, you design something, you have an object and you can send it to the printer and then you physically could finish assembling it or yes.

So, and you know, I know we've had some fascinating projects on this campus, including printing of structure on Mars.

Because NASA knows they can't ship a building, but they might be able to ship a printer, and take the soil or whatever, and actually construct something.

This is really remarkable on so many different perspectives.

So how many different types of materials can we can we use?

I've heard plastic and Martian soil, - Limited by your imagination there.

I mean, we can print meat we can print bones, we can print metals we can print carbon glass.

If you can imagine the material or any mix of material.

And not only that we can position different types of material exactly where we need it even really phenomenal capabilities.

That's for that reason, there's not a college on campus that isn't making use of 3D printing in some way, shape or form.

whether it's one of the great things that Nicole and Ryan do is they really help students get this idea of showing what they're doing instead of telling what they're doing.

Right.

So, Oh, what are you working on?

Well, actually here it is physically, inspect it, let me show you how it works and it's available.

Any student all they gotta do is design it really easily.

And then some are using it as their first entry to the market where they're actually making a functional part that they can test, or the first one to show an investor.

A lot of the entrepreneurship ecosystem at Penn State is really using black.

Some are even using them as a man a full on manufacturing process for replacement parts or custom parts.

Really just a huge gamut of what can be done by - I guess, I was sort of biased maybe it's because I never had seemed to have extra time with this notion that here's a house and a kitchen drawer and then knob breaks.

It's 40 years old and there's no way I can go to some hardware store and get it or find it, and have them mail it to me.

That someday I'll just be able to print the knob because my house will come the computer digital descriptions.

This is sort of that this just make life a little easier in some ways.

But you started down a path that's much more profound printing bone, printing an organ.

Are we about to see a revolution in healthcare, because you can literally print a part of the human body and then presumably have it be something that your body won't reject that you could get a new knee - We're already there, It's not my area of expertise we're already there.

- Yeah.

- But it's even more revolutionary than that like I, for me, my, what really gets me excited is not the high end use.

The high end users are really cool, they make the paper.

For me it's this broad use.

You were talking about replacing your drop, your drawer knob.

That's really interesting, but think of all the people in all of the communities all around the world, that don't have access to that component when it breaks.

And that component can be on the only well pump in town, it can be on the 20 year old medical equipment that's in their hospital.

There's really fantastic things that we can do all around the world.

Basically the other 80% of the world that has no access to a complete global supply chain.

- This is no longer shipping waiting months for the part.

This is basically as long as you've got the metal or plastic material, you you can essentially melt it and create it.

- You got it.

Exactly.

One of the things that's launched out of, at Penn State and out of the HESI program, the humanitarian engineering and social entrepreneurship program is this company called Gency that's located in Kenya.

And I know Dr. Barron, you've been familiar with that in the past, where we're creating distributed manufacturing hubs in order to localize manufacturing.

But yet kind of keep all these what Ryan and Nicole were talking about these difficult centralized engineering processes.

Keeping those all together and then being able to make what you need, where you need it when you need it.

- Well, Ryan, what do you think of some of the more transformative areas here that people may tackle?

- I think one of the most exciting things that we're especially doing here at Penn state is just normalizing the idea, that when you have an idea or you have a replacement part, you want to build that you can go in 3D print it.

It requires a specific kind of mindset, to build that into your tool kit of knowing, Oh I have a problem here and I can solve it with prototyping out a new idea Or building something with 3D printing.

And this really feeds into these concepts of digital fluency, where we want to inspire our students.

Not just to sort of understand how to pull in new knowledge right, and expand their own sort of library of tools that they have, but also contribute back and create new knowledge in these spaces.

If you understand prototyping and building out and exploring these concepts with 3D printing, then these skillsets continue to grow.

And you become a more sort of digitally fluent 21st century citizen.

It's really foundational to providing these kinds of opportunities for our students especially for careers that don't even exist yet.

Right.

In many ways that the jobs they're going to have in 2030, we can't prepare them specifically for because they're still being invented.

So 3D printing is another way that we could give them the opportunities to build those skill sets to go to those careers.

- Nicole do you have a favorite frontier?

- The innovative part of 3D printing is about as John was mentioning.

Taking resources in areas that don't have unlimited access to the things that they need and combining them to make new materials.

New formulas for concrete or new formula, new alloys.

That technology allows you to use whatever's around you in different ways than you wouldn't be able to in the past.

And then separately, I have some examples of of classes that we're partnering with, We work with here at maker comments.

And so, as Ryan was talking about prototyping and allowing students to easily take the designs that are in their minds, we're working with a lot of the engineering design, 100 classes.

And specifically Jessica Amino assignment was really interesting.

She had her students take a problem, and use human centered design thinking to create and print toys for children from vulnerable populations.

So this semester, the students to find that that population is visually impaired children.

And so they use the prototyping technologies available to them, and they actually combined 3D printing with things like Arduinos and other microcontrollers.

I really like thinking about the combination of 3D printing.

With things like mini computers that can control different aspects of what people are creating or using utilizing.

We have a Cricket maker here where you it's a consumer level dye cutter.

So you could cut out the parts you need and then apply them with your 3D printer.

Or your 3D printer printed object holds the pieces that your prototype needs to keep it all together in one place, like a sensor for a greenhouse, for example.

- Wow, amazing.

So are there ethical concerns?

Are there areas where this technology presents potential issues that we have to worry through?

- Yeah, definitely.

You can print anything, like literally anything you can print.

It's been, people have been talking you can print a gun, print a gun and plastic, Functional guns, people are sharing designs.

There's a lot of open.

It also opens up this whole world of open source where people are sharing designs for products.

So the another, so not only is it what you print, but it's also who owns what you print.

There's the ethics of that.

The ability to coffee products down it's really easy to do that at this.

I think those are two really huge ethical issues.

And then I'll just get a plugin again, who gets to own these 3D printers and for whom do these 3D printers work?

Is this going to be a nether technology that we create that only 20% of the world gets to see the advantages of it, or is it can be a technology that is open to everybody?

- And, not having the advantage because of the cost of it or because of the control of who's manufacturing the equipment?

Or the access to digital training, Are all of those factors and who gets to have access?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

That was pretty good, for someone who says you're not too fluent.

And then you kind of hit all the major issues, that was pretty awesome.

- (laughs) I'm glad.

It is interesting because we talk about broadband as a revolutionary, but in the rural areas of this country, we don't have access.

It is increasingly placing populations at a disadvantage.

It is conceivable that here is this dream, that you are at absolutely transforming rural areas or poor areas because you don't have to worry about supply chain issues and you can print it.

And at the very same time, it's also possible that this will create an even greater divide between populations if you don't have access.

- Absolutely.

So one of the things that I harp on with students in this HESI program is you've got this fan, the privilege of this fantastic education for what ends are you gonna use this education?

For whose ends are you gonna use this education?

There are a lot of people that are graduating from whatever university and going out there and taking jobs.

They're helping this 20% top 20% of the population economically.

But who's focusing their resources on everybody else?

So this has to, this could be an opportunity to actually localize manufacturing and localize the design.

So I can make products that people in Kisumu Kenya really need, where nobody in the world is focusing on Kisumu Kenya, because it's too expensive to ship everything, et cetera there.

But with 3D with digital manufacturing, just in general it's really easy to get things where they need to be for the people that need it.

- So, Penn state's reputation in this space is significant.

Is it not, are we viewed as a leading university in 3D printing and additive manufacturing?

- I would say one of the top few in the world.

- Top few in the world?

- Seem 3D is kind of like to some degree, the heart heartbeat of that pushing that leading edge of it, they're doing a just an outstanding job of world-leading research as to what 3D additive manufacturing could possibly be.

We've got one of the leading graduate programs in it as well.

- So will we end up with our students wanting this on their resume, that they've had some experience here?

- Yes, absolutely.

That's something where I'm speaking about access right, where we've really tried to democratize access to.

Not only students at university park but the entire Commonwealth campus community can get access to these machines as well.

We partnered with the university libraries to ship prints through the existing inter-library loan system.

So any of the students at the Commonwealth campuses, can use these systems for free if they don't already have 3D printers at their campuses, which many of them are starting to as well.

Really, it just requires enthusiasm.

If you're excited about this and you want to learn it doesn't matter what discipline or major you're in, you can become proficient in 3D printing.

And absolutely add that to your resume as something that helps you stand out wow.

- Remarkable, our time just went so fast.

I know there's none left but I have to ask one more question If you have a really quick answer.

How long before someone will have a personal 3D printer in their home?

I think you're talking to three people that already have one.

(all laughs) - Okay.

But I can't go buy one on Amazon yet can I?

Oh, I can.

Okay.

Then the world is changing and I'm not keeping up.

So I really appreciate the three of you coming on the show what an incredibly fascinating topic and what a potential future there.

So thank you so much.

- Thank you my pleasure Dr. - Thanks for having me.

- Thank you for having, or speaking with me, Dr. Baron on this super interesting topic.

- Really?

- That interview is super interesting.

So obviously based off of that I know that there's a lot unknown.

But I guess first question is, do you see 3D printing incorporated in regular students learning, I guess in the near future or even longterm?

- So I think what surprised me is as how much it's being used already.

I mean, we heard the speaker sit there and talk about an engineering design class.

Well, arts and architecture is another area where you can imagine the design, I'm sitting there picturing someone taking little cutout pieces of balsa wood and gluing them together to create, a structure or some sort of foam block.

And here it is that you can create structures and play with them.

The arts and architecture, and additive manufacturing combined to do the Mars project for which students were involved in.

Or I have seen cases where people, take the opportunity to look at some fossil and create a way to be able to examine it sort of inside and out by the printing printing process.

So increasingly I'm starting to wonder what area might not have 3D printing as part of the educational process.

Instead of saying where will it have the greatest impact?

Just think of sculpture.

Art now has a 3D printing component to it, as people use their creative minds to do beautiful things.

It's everywhere going to be everywhere.

- It is insane.

He said in the interview, he was like, it has it is used in every school already.

And that was kind of shocking me to hear.

So I guess, what would you like to see in 3D printing, that would be common use or helpful in schools in university?

Something that you think that Penn state and other universities could really benefit from.

What the use of 3D printing regularly?

I guess.

- So I guess the thing part of, so there are two there are two areas that come to mind, partly because of the guests that were on the show, that I think are are rather dramatic and interesting.

In my mind I kept thinking this can make life easier.

But here that the notion of replicating a bone in your body so that it isn't version four of a knee or something like that.

It's actually image your knee and recreated your knee or an organ.

This seems to me to be astounding, but then really to contemplate the fact that we're shipping things all over the place.

And if you're a small village, in a very remote area and the only water pump breaks, and you can imagine how long you would wait for that part to come.

Now you could actually print it as long as there was access to this single piece of equipment.

That is an astounding transformation for human wellbeing in my mind.

That that suggests that part of this frontier for the university, is really combining business and engineering and technology and the human side of our educational process to really help society be better.

The mission of a land brand is in service to society.

We're watching that.

Here we are at one of the strongest universities in the world in this space, and we really have an opportunity to serve society in so many different ways.

- Definitely, obviously 3D printing is in the near future, as they said in the interview.

(upbeat music) It's crazy how fast we're moving.

So thank you so much for being here, Dr. Baron for talking on this super interesting topic.

Once again.

- My pleasure.

- Support for digging deeper comes from the Penn state alumni association connecting alumni to the university and to each other.

The alumni association is powered by pride, learn more@alumnidotpsu.edu.

And from viewers like you, thank you.