One of the key drivers of the growth of 3D printing technology in Northeast Ohio is Youngstown-based America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute. The organization makes frequent appearances in 3D printing headlines, and they’re now back in the news along with frequent collaborators Youngstown State University and Humtown Products, which you may remember for helping to produce life-sized 3D printed bobbleheads of a couple of prominent politicians in the fall.
“It will enable industry to respond with ultra-fast product-to-market prototyping and the production of parts that were once considered unable to be manufactured,” said Mark Lamoncha, President and Chief Executive of Humtown Products.
The new facility will also serve as a laboratory and classroom for engineering students from YSU and other colleges and universities around Northeast Ohio. The 2,800-square-foot, humidity- and climate-controlled facility also houses office space and a 40-seat, auditorium-style training room that will host a 3D Printing Optimization Course taught by the American Foundry Society, which is collaborating with YSU, America Makes, the Youngstown Business Incubator, and the University of Northern Iowa to bring additive manufacturing to the forefront of the metal casting industry.
Meanwhile, Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University has been busy extending not only its 3D printing programming, but its other technological research areas as well. In late 2017, the university, in partnership with the Ohio Manufacturers’ Association and the Detroit-based Lift (Lightweight Innovations for Tomorrow), will be offering a lightweight additive manufacturing professional certification program. The purpose of the program will be to increase workers’ skills in advanced manufacturing as well as to attract new manufacturers to the area.In addition, CWRU is partnering with Cleveland State University to develop a new regional academic collaboration focused on the Internet of Things. A $200,000, six-month grant from the Cleveland Foundation will allow the two universities to work together to identify and develop academic and research solutions to challenges that affect connected devices, as well as helping to prepare a workforce to further advance the technology in the region.
“This funding provides a focused opportunity for Case Western Reserve and CSU to develop an academic collaboration that includes education and research in the emerging field of IoT by capitalizing on our individual strengths, leveraging our complementary assets and identifying critical needs for the future,” said Kenneth Loparo, the Nord Professor and chair of CWRU’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
According to CWRU, the grant will support efforts to:
- Develop a model of private-public higher education collaboration around education, research and training with an administrative structure that supports its implementation.
- Conduct a feasibility study to test the model with an industry partner for validation, feedback and refinement.
- Host a public IoT symposium to promote the regional economic impact and opportunities and seek additional support and feedback from stakeholders, including public sector, industry and other higher-educational institutions.
“With increasing reliance on social networking systems, the fundamental structures of human contact and communication have begun to include the physical infrastructure around us in ways previously never imagined,” said Nigamanth Sridhar, professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at CSU. “The vision for such an always-connected world includes an Internet of Things, which can provide society with a seamless, coherent and unified interface to the world around us. This grant allows CSU and CWRU to work together in new and innovative ways to provide educational and research opportunities to our region.”