MAKER: Very Low-cost Experiments via 3-D Printing and Vacuum Forming

We demonstrate a new approach to fabricate inexpensive fluid and thermal experiments that engineering students can manipulate to master concepts in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics and heat transfer. The approach is based on design for manufacture that leverages flexible manufacturing tools such as CAD, 3-D printers and vacuum forming machines to produce an array of simple and easy to use experimental hardware. Several sets of experimental hardware have been developed: Venturi Nozzle experiments conceived to exercise students’ understanding of the Bernoulli equation and Pipe Flow experiments designed to help students’ master principles of head loss. The experimental devices to be demonstrated here have been fabricated using a four step approach. First, commercial CAD software is used to define the geometry of an experiment. Second, a rapid prototyping machine is used to 3-D print a plastic mold of the design. Third, a vacuum former is used to form thin plastic sheets around the 3-printed mold. Finally, the vacuum formed sheets are assembled together to produce multiple copies of the experiment. The result is an approach that allows the development of experiments that are robust and inexpensive enough to distribute individual copies to small groups of students with the cost to each student in the class comparable to the price of a textbook. This approach opens up the possibility of a wide variety of experimental activities for active learning that can be implemented in classrooms, for home use, and for distance education.