Creality 3D printers boost education for engineering undergrads

In recent decades, our understanding of what constitutes the best educational strategies has started to shift away from conventional methods like lectures towards more active, hands-on learning. In fields like engineering, the application of practical exercises is particularly important, enabling students to make tangible connections between theory and the real world as well as to hone their problem solving skills. 3D printing has proven to be a key technology in facilitating this educational paradigm shift, as evidenced by the engineering department at the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) in Germany.

At TUHH, students are encouraged to apply what they’ve learned in lectures and text books to real life through the development of creative and often innovative projects. Since it has adopted systems from 3D printer manufacturer Creality, the university’s offering to students has improved dramatically on this front, giving them the tools required to turn ideas into functional prototypes. 

For instance, at the Institute for Smart Engineering and Machine Elements (ISEM), 3D printing has become a foundational element in tackling product development and engineering problems. In more specific terms, the group, led by Professor Nikola Bursac, uses 3D printing as part of its continuous workflow to rapidly iterate design prototypes, test them, and improve them until the desired outcome is achieved.

Upgrading the hardware

While ISEM has been using 3D printing for prototyping for many years, it found that the entry-level systems it was first using were limited in terms of their precision, consistency, and material compatibility. This meant that students were themselves limited to creating less complex designs and were often faced with time-consuming troubleshooting and print failures. 

To address this constraint, the institute decided to upgrade their printing hardware so that students could test complex concepts and pursue the development of innovative products and systems. Today, TUHH offers students access to a range of high-quality, yet still accessible, 3D printers, including Creality’s K1C and K2 Plus, and accessories like the CFS system. With these systems at their fingertips, students have been able to take on complex prototyping projects in a hands-on way and really put their engineering design skills to work.

Creality’s K1C 3D printer is a robust system engineered for high efficiency and printing carbon-fiber-filled materials. This makes it ideal for iterating functional prototypes. The K2 Plus, for its part, is Creality’s flagship system with multi-color printing capability, ideal for unleashing creativity. When paired with CFS, Creality’s filament system, the K2 Plus can print up to 16 colors.  

It’s worth noting that Creality recently introduced the Filament Maker M1 and Shredder R1, desktop-friendly systems that can also impact additive manufacturing in the educational sphere. These systems facilitate material recycling, enabling users to reprocess and reuse waste, as well as develop their own filaments in-house. Ultimately, with these solutions added to a continuous prototyping workflow, greater circularity can be achieved. 

From billiard robots to grills

At ISEM, Creality’s 3D printers play an important role in bringing ISEM students’ projects to life, such as the Mechanical Design Project II. This project, a cornerstone of the engineering bachelor’s program, sees student teams working over the course of an entire semester to develop a complex mechatronic system. More specifically, a billiard-playing robot. This robot must integrate a mechanical striking unit that is functional, robust and reproducible, and encourages students to go through multiple iteration cycles to come up with the best possible design. 

Creality’s 3D printers have proven essential to bring a variety of robot parts to life, from critical structures, to housings, to interfaces, all while giving students the flexibility to refine and prototype their designs.  

“The printing systems have raised the speed, quality, and diversity of our projects to a new level,” said Professor Bursac about Creality’s impact on the Mechanical Design Project. “They allow us to view prototyping no longer as a limiting factor but as a true driver of innovation in both teaching and research.”

Creality’s 3D printing hardware has also been important in ISEM’s Generational Sheet-Metal Development (GSD) module, in which student teams are tasked with designing functional grills. 3D printing has enabled students to rapidly produce functional prototypes, as well as other components for the grills like fixtures and testing adapters. The “steaks” are high for this project: the winning grill is ultimately manufactured and put into operation. 

Broadly speaking, Creality 3D printing has laid the foundation for a continuous workflow in which students take control of every step, including CAD design, prototyping, testing, and refinement. The quality and consistency of the printing systems has also been impactful, enabling students to speed up prototyping cycles from weeks to mere hours in some cases. 

3D printing at TUHH and beyond

At TUHH’s ISEM, the integration of 3D printing into lessons and workflows is only growing. According to Professor Bursac, the institute plans to expand its use of Creality’s 3D printing solutions into other STEM areas, including research on Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) as well as for outreach programs for younger students. This summer, ISEM is also planning to announce a new workshop that aims to drive innovation through AM-enabled iterative development.  

TUHH is far from the only educational institution to be leveraging 3D printing and reaping the benefits of hands-on learning. In Japan, for instance, a team of students from Tohoku University and Keio University used Creality’s Ender Series printers to develop a Mars rover prototype for the University Rover Challenge (URC). An educator in France has also enhanced anatomical lessons through the use of tactile 3D printed models made using the K2 Plus and K2 Pro. 

In the end, the simple decision to invest in 3D printing hardware can allow students to develop and hone skills related to engineering design and problem solving. As Creality writes of 3D printing at TUHH: “Students now gain hands-on experience more quickly and frequently, thus identifying design flaws and understanding the real-world consequences of engineering decisions. This leads to higher motivation, stronger problem-solving skills, and a clearer connection between STEM theory and application.”