3DPrinterOSPrinters everywhere, and too much hand-holding
Unlike a traditional makerspace with a single location, William Paterson's 3D printers are distributed across campus. The public space in the library is open to everyone and sees 200–300 unique users each year, with further facilities in the Department of Art, Humanities and the Sciences.
Students found 3D printing a steep learning curve, so staff ran a concierge-style service with a lot of hand-holding. As 3D printing spread beyond the Department of Art and submissions reached up to 100 files a day, that became a bottleneck. Christopher Weber went looking for a cloud-based system that could manage presets and unify the slicers.
One cloud interface for every printer and slicer
MakerBot recommended 3DPrinterOS in 2016, as the university started with multiple 3D printers. 3DPrinterOS connects varied types of printers and runs them on a single interface, and admins have a complete line of sight into who is printing what, and on which machine.
Every part of the process is tracked, monitored and audited with the reporting tools. Because it is cloud based, Chris manages it all from his own computer and students log in from theirs at any time. Students start on the simplest printers and, as they gain mastery, move on to advanced materials, other printers and third-party slicers with very specific settings.
Higher success rates and more independent students
The toolpath visualization in 3DPrinterOS has dramatically increased the 3D print success rate. Because Chris and his team control and manage the slicers, they can safely give students more room to work unsupervised than in the past.
3D printing has spread from fine arts and material sciences to environmental sciences, where students create medical models or use a 3D scanner to replicate fossils that are sensitive to handling.
