Artie Moskowitz holds one of the many prosthetics that he has built using a 3-D printer.
Garland Area MakerSpace members Learn about medical and industrial applications for 3D Printers
Members of the Garland Area Makerspace had a special meeting tonight with a wonderful presentation from Artie Moskowitz, President of 3D Printer Farms.
Artie has been involved in 3D printing for the past 4 years, ever since seeing a video of a boy getting a prosthetic hand made by a 3D printer. As one of the original volunteers for e-NABLE [http://enablingthefuture.org] Artie has printed and assembled more than 50 hands and arms for children in need around the world. His volunteer efforts led to jobs with 3D Systems and then a national distributor of 3D printers and he currently runs his own company, 3D Printer Farms. He brought a Z-Morph, multipurpose desktop 3-D printer with him. This machine prints; cnc machines; and laser cuts.
Artie brought a Zmorph 3-D Printer to demonstrate tonight. The flat blue plate in the foreground is the platform that holds the thing being built.
According to Artie, we need a national manufacturing strategy and well-defined policies to rebuild American manufacturing. One of his goals is to equip people with the tools and resources they need to participate in rebuilding American manufacturing and creating jobs at home.
Artie certainly was living his mission tonight as he inspired just about every member of our audience to learn more about using 3D printers to make things—especially prosthetics. I would not be surprised to see some of our Garland Area Makerspace members joining the e-NABLE volunteer network of digital humanitarians and making 3-D printed devices as soon as this fall.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, Garland Area Makerspace members are not waiting for a space. We are moving forward with the resources at hand today. For example, we are making our plans for two groups to start in June: Eco Makers (a group of makers interested in creating items from recycled materials) and now we will have a 3-D Printing group. The first step for 3-D printing is to gain mastery of the software used to create the images that are then sent to the 3-D printer. We will meet with our laptops at a member’s home and learn together.
Lots of Things were on the Garland MakerSpace Table tonight: Maker Buttons; Fund raising idea—Donate $10 or more and get a free shopping bag made by maker members from recycled materials; flyers from Rockler Woodworking in Garland on I-30 advertising Free Wood Bow Tie Make and Take Event; handouts about Eco Makers; Definitions of MakerSpaces; Garland Area Makerspace brochure; and membership signup sheets.
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We will be making this summer.
We are not letting lack of a physical space hold us back. We have the generosity of our public library for our once a month meetings where we will talk about what we have been making and learning and also have demonstrations and presentations such as Artie’s tonight. The other times we will meet in the homes of a maker member and move forward in learning together this summer about things we can make from recycled materials and how to create images to be printed in a 3-D printer.
Who knows? Perhaps by fall some of our members will be making prosthetics like the one below that Artie brought for demonstration tonight.
One of many hands made by Artie. No the gargoyle is not attached, although it appears to be. When Artie figured out how to make Gargoyles on the 3D printer, he wanted to make two, three-foot tall ones for the front lawn. His wife put her foot down on that idea.