It has been two years since Pickering Associates purchased its 3D printer, and our team is putting it to good use. We’ve printed detailed, to-scale models of schools, hospitals, industrial plants, mechanical rooms, piping layouts, water treatment trailers, and much more. With each project, we enable our clients to more clearly visualize a project before ground is ever broken.
To date, all of these models have been printed and assembled by Architectural and 3D Designer, Nick Arnold. With demand growing, Nick has begun training a new specialist, Elisha Bookman. “I’m excited to train Elisha because she’s always been one of our top software users,” Nick exclaims. “Her technical skills and attention to detail are outstanding. Allowing her to expand those skills into the realm of 3D printing seemed like an excellent opportunity to add another layer of clarity to our clients’ projects.”
Unlike the maker-bots many of us used in school, our printer is gypsum-based. This allows us to print in any color and with fine detail. For each layer, the machine lays down a line of glue and a layer of powder, printing a fraction of an inch at a time. A print job can take as long as 16 hours. Once the model has been printed, the excess powder will be vacuumed back into the machine for future use. The model will then be dusted off by hand in a vacuum-controlled chamber before being dipped in a sealing solution.
“It’s just fascinating!” Elisha says. “I took a machining course in college. It was really neat to cut down and shape stock materials into objects. 3D printing reminds me a lot of that, except that instead of cutting away material, you’re building it up. It’s a great way to turn an abstract concept on your computer screen into a concrete object that you can hold in your hands.”
For her first project, Elisha worked with Nick to model and print custom name tags for an event hosted by Building Bridges to Careers. Pickering Associates is proud to be a Local Business Partner of Building Bridges to Careers (BBC), a non-profit organization founded in Washington County to help bridge the gap between education and employment. Nick is an active member of BBC, participating in a committee that is committed to bringing employers and teachers together to create real-life critical thinking problems for the classroom. Nick also works with shadow students and presents to local classrooms about what we do here at Pickering Associates.
“I enjoy being a part of the BBC Organization because of the bonds they are forming with our local school districts and students,” Nick says. “Nurturing the next generation of thinkers and doers in our local workforce is such a privilege. Connecting with professionals in my local area always inspired me as a student, and I’m honored to be able to pay that forward.”
As Pickering Associates continues to push the boundaries of new technologies and software, we can’t help but share our discoveries with local educators and students. The next generation of our community’s designers are learning right here and right now. The faster we can pass along current trends and discoveries specific to our region, the better prepared these students will be to enter our local work force. Together, we are moving the Mid-Ohio Valley towards a brighter future.