Faculty Projects
Resin Design Laboratories for 3D Printing of Soft, Functional Materials

Ryan Truby

Project Manager

Ryan Truby, Assistant Professor, Materials Science and Engineering and Mechanical Engineering

Amount Requested

$12,200

Summary

Over the last decade, 3D printers have become ubiquitous in STEM education. Students now commonly encounter 3D printers at schools and libraries while in primary school. These tools capture their imaginations – they can use simple tools to print complex shapes and figures – and inspire creativity, sometimes motivating students to pursue education in STEM. However, while every 3D printer must use a physical material feedstock in the printing process, few students consider the nature of the material itself, despite its critical role in additive manufacturing.

Our goal is to leverage the unique capabilities of the 3D printing process to develop a hands-on educational experience for our MAT_SCI 331 – Soft Materials students. Currently, the course investigates the role of polymer chemistry and structure, focusing on understanding mechanical response in soft materials. 3D printing solidifies these concepts by challenging students to apply their knowledge to 3D printing resin design, requiring students to select appropriate monomers, crosslinkers, photoinitiators, and other additives to print materials of target shapes and desired mechanical properties. Through a series of laboratories and a final project, students will ultimately be tasked with fabricating a physical key that is sufficiently stiff and strong to open a series of locks of increasing difficulty without failure.

This teaching innovation will bring a new, modern design aspect to our department’s soft materials curriculum, providing undergraduates with the opportunity to work in teams to assimilate the core concepts of the course to solve a tangible engineering challenge. Further, as 3D printing is an increasingly essential tool for the modern engineer, this new approach should help us achieve the high-level engineering educational outcomes necessary for a next-generation workforce, all while improving student experience and engagement. These needs were highlighted by the National Academies’ in their 2023 report, Infusing Advanced Manufacturing into Undergraduate Engineering Education.

Planned Activities/Investments

Students will work in collaborative teams to learn foundational soft materials concepts through the design of custom 3D resins. The curricular design includes a series of eight laboratories, each utilizing inexpensive desktop printers which would be housed in our department’s teaching laboratory. Students will achieve the following outcomes the through the laboratories and design project:

  • Identify and describe the basics of polymerization through photopolymerization processes used to harden (or “print”) the resins
  • Identify mechanisms of addition of condensation polymerization in deferent resin designs
  • Apply their foundational understanding of polymerization and polymer structure to the structure-property relationships of 3D printed parts
  • Compare differences in structure-property relationships of polymer networks formed through various 3D printing resins (e.g., flexible or rigid resins)
  • Utilize their understanding of soft materials to design their own 3D printing resin that yields a part of the correct form (i.e., a key) and properties (i.e., high stiffness and strength) needed to open a lock. Students will need to consider polymerization mechanism, monomer, crosslinker, crosslinker molecular weight, and photoinitiator.
  • Function in collaborative teams to identify the properties required for the final 3D-printed part, and subsequently reverse engineer a resin to meet the requirements
  • Explain the rationale behind their formulation within the context of their design
  • Conjecture about deviations from expected material performance and propose iterative improvements

With the funding requested, we anticipate that we will be able to procure 3D printers and a materials catalog that can sustain three separate course offerings of labs.

Impact

This project will impact students enrolling in MAT_SCI 331, which has a census of about 30 students per year (about 70% undergraduates and 30% graduate students). This laboratory will shift the course structure from an instructor-centered pedagogy to an active, student-centered, projected-based approach. We will be able to measure well-defined student outcomes described in Part II and compare to outcomes in previous years to determine impact on student learning. We will also survey students to measure student-reported outcomes and experience via post-course surveys.

As this laboratory is intended to challenge students to achieve higher-level cognitive reasoning (formulate, evaluate, design), we can also follow up with students who advance to design-based work in industry or academia and ask them to reflect on how the experience in the course impacted their career path and core competencies.

Sustainability

Printers can last for several years, and regular maintenance should allow us to develop and refine the laboratories over the next 3-5 years. We’ve requested funds to procure printing materials and laboratory supplies that will last several years, but the department’s educational funding is sufficient to maintain these supplies in the future.

Professor Truby has also been selected as a 2023-2024 Searle Fellow. This year-long program will synergistically support the development, implementation, and long-term success of this Murphy-funded project.

Deliverables

The main deliverable is to develop a new set of laboratories and term project for MAT_SCI 331 and to achieve the outcomes listed in Part II. These new laboratories will be documented in such a way that we can transfer the educational content to other interested educators. We will measure declared student outcomes during each offering of the course to determine impact on learning, as well as monitoring CTECs to evaluate student experience.

We aim to report the effect of these laboratories on student outcomes and experience through peer-reviewed educational publications (e.g. the Journal of Chemical Education) and highlight our work at educational conferences (e.g., the North American Materials Education Symposium or the American Society for Engineering Education). The project will also be the required showcase project for Professor Truby’s Searle Fellowship.

Previous Projects

We have not submitted a proposal for a similar type of project to the Murphy Society in previous years.

Budget Overview

The award will fund the following:

  • $1,200 Undergraduate Student Assistants: Two work-study (160 hrs each) support to debug candidate formulations.
  • $3,800 Anycubic Photon M3 Printer (5): Ten printers for use by student teams (teams of 3).
  • $700 Vacuum Pump and Desiccator: Degassing resins.
  • $5,000 Resin Reagents: For synthesizing resins.
  • $1,500 Resin Prep Materials: Lab disposables for materials handling and cleanup.

Total: $12,200

Matching Funds

The MSE department will dedicate funds through the MSE Teaching Labs to sustain this project.