[lovelj]

I am the mentor for FRC team 3824 quoted in the article, Dr. Lonnie Love. FIRST team 3824 has been the catalyst for the pilot this year. When I went to Hardin Valley Academy the first day of build season their rookie year, I asked the students if they could show me and two other ORNL mentors, Craig Blue and Martin Keller, their shop. They don't have a shop, BUT they did have a uPrint that they bought with startup funds. They just didn't know how to use it. I taught 3 HVA students SolidWorks and it's just exploded. The first year, about 25% of their robot was printed. Their second year, they printed their entire robot, even using our titanium printers. Last year, designed and built a hybrid additive/carbon fiber robot. We had a booth with America Makes and showed what was coming at Nationals last year. The students from 3824 have become an integral part of the MDF. They are working with us on a new printer that makes carbon fiber reinforced plastic parts. On top of that, it's big (8 ft x 8 ft x 8 ft) build volume and fast (500 cubic inch of material an hour). I'm hoping that they use this system this year to print their entire robot. By the way, I hire about 25 interns every summer to work in the MDF. Almost all of them are FIRST alums.

Why are we doing this? ORNL was established during the Manhattan Project to help win WWII. We, like all FIRST mentors, are concerned about our country's future. We see FIRST as the mechanism to train our future manufacturing workforce. We also see Additive Manufacturing as the perfect tool for establishing dominance in manufacturing. Who better to help develop and mature the technology than FIRST students? We are convinced that, if we just put printers in the classroom, they would gather dust. However, if we start with FIRST, you students can lead this revolution.

Buckle up. It's going to get wild. All we ask is that you do what you do best, innovate and inspire.

Lonnie