UNE students use 3D printers as a technology edge in their professions
Photo / Holly Haywood, University of New England photographer
University of New England Marine Sciences major Katie Gilbert '15 worked with Michael Vickery, operations manager and simulation specialist at UNE in Portland, who used a 3D printer to produce a missing kneecap (arrow) for a seal skeleton to be hung in late February at the University of New England's Marine Science Center at its Biddeford campus.
Photo / Holly Haywood, University of New England photographer
The seal patella, or kneecap, produced using a 3D printer (right), was printed, layer-by-layer, based on measurements of the natural bone kneecap (left, darker bone) by Michael Vickery, operations manager and simulation specialist at the University of New England's Interprofessional Simulation & Innovation Center in Portland. The printed patella measures about 1-1/2 inches high by 1 inch wide by about 1/4-inch thick.
When the University of New England hangs its new seal skeleton at its Marine Science Center in Biddeford at the end of February, the mammal bones will be complete, thanks to state-of-the-art 3D printer technology being developed at UNE for use across many departments, including medicine and dentistry.
The completed skeleton once belonged to an adult male grey seal (which can weigh up to 770 pounds) that passed away during rehab at the now-closed UNE Marine Animal Rehabilitation and Conservation program. It was assembled by UNE Marine Sciences major Katie Gilbert last summer, before her senior year. The skeleton will be a valuable learning tool to future UNE marine science students, and an example of how 3D printer technology can be used in a broad range of fields.
“The layout of the skeleton really was like a giant jigsaw puzzle,” Gilbert said in a prepared statement. “Every bone has its exact place but a lot of bones are very similar to others, like the ribs and the vertebra. Determining which pieces go where is a very fine process.”
But she came to an unwelcomed revelation when she found that one puzzle piece, the right patella or kneecap, was missing.
Enter 3D printing technology. Gilbert teamed up with Michael Vickery, operations manager and simulation specialist, at UNE’s Interprofessional Simulation & Innovation Center in Portland. Vickery’s group, which actually is part of UNE’s art department, photographed the seal’s intact left patella, created a digitized mirror image of it and then printed it using a lightweight material called laybrick sandstone. Gilbert painted the printed patella to match the color of the rest of the skeleton.
Building the future
While the printers have gained almost gimmicky notoriety, from printing functioning guns to building a villa with five-story houses in China using construction waste as ink, programs like the one at UNE see 3D printing as a way to help students learn, and once they graduate, to help their human patients.
Vickery is teaching a 3D printing course in UNE’s art department, but ironically, the 12 students in the class are from disciplines like dentistry and medicine, where they see the new technology improving their job prospects and patient care in the future.
When Mainebiz visited him on Thursday, his MakerGear-brand 3D printer, which cost about $1,800, was busy layering the palm of a human hand by pulling in a reel of plastic, then melting it at 428 degrees Fahrenheit and building it up in layers, much like a 3D glue gun. The printers can use various techniques and materials, but Vickery’s was using fused deposition modeling with molten materials. A video showing the 3D printer at work — by UNE film producer/director Daniel Lambert and narrated by Vickery — can be seen here.
Story continues after video.
“You can also print circuitry on a 3D printer,” Vickery explains, “so you could have sensors in prosthetics.”
His students learn how to create a model, for example, of a hand, and then select the material and fill pattern using software — some available for free on the Web. The software, which can be run on a laptop computer, tells the printer what material to place where in the model.
“Because the university doesn’t have a computer science or engineering program, students have little [technology] background, but they’re interested in how to integrate this into their disciplines of the future,” he says. “They can print ears and noses.”
The art department provided the funding for the printers.
Real-world experience
Vickery wants to spread use of the technology through UNE, and in the future plans to collaborate with the simulation laboratory to integrate 3D printing into its programs, which simulate a medical emergency so students can learn how to respond.
“I program the robotic patient simulators,” he says. So he can use the 3D printer to create a bad burn or wound to be placed onto the robotic patient for treatment by the students.
“We’re also talking with the anatomy department to take magnetic resonance imaging or computerized tomography scans and make models for specific patients,” he says.
So far, the university’s work still is early, and it has not forged any ties with industry, though Vickery is involved with the Maine FabLab at the Engine art gallery in Biddeford, and says the two have been talking to potentially set up a 3D printing fabrication incubator at UNE.
He also has several 3D printers at home, where he builds models for E-nabling The Future, a nonprofit that aims to build prosthetics for people in need.
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