3D printing a new digital literacy at library
Artist’s tiny plastic electric chairs are prototypes for show
There are four electric chairs sitting in Stev’nn Hall’s Cannon Street living room and studio. They’re brightly painted plastic, just a few inches tall and sit on a gouged and paint-stained table, squat beneath an east window.
The death-dealing devices, based on a Sing Sing prison model called “Old Sparky,” are 1/16 scale prototypes for a gallery exhibit the 52-year-old multimedia artist is planning for next year in Los Angeles.
“I’m interested in the audience that a lot of devices of death require, and the consumer choice we are offered,” Hall explains, pointing to the variety of colours his chairs come in.
All four chairs were printed in the 3D printer in Hamilton Public Library’s Makerspace. Like many other Hamiltonians, Hall finds the ability to inexpensively generate plastic models and prototypes invaluable.
But, let’s back up. 3D printers? Tiny electric chairs? At a library? Yep.
For the past three years, the main branch of the library’s fourth-floor Makerspace has been home to a couple of Ultimaker 2+ printers. The squat, square devices can turn spools of coloured plastic into small objects: Dr. Who’s Tardis, a spaceship, a skull or, in Hall’s case, a shockingly deadly chair.
The printers work their magic by turning three dimensional models created in free online software like SketchUp or Tinkercad into a series of instructions for a plastic filament extruder and a constantly descending build plate. Together they perform a slow pas de deux that, micron by micron, builds up layers of a real world object over the course of hours.
Library patrons like Hall pay only a few dollars for the cost of the plastic filament.
“It can be very costly to get prototypes like this done commercially,” Hall says, lifting the top half of a chair off its printed plastic base. That half alone took eight hours to print. “It’s amazing the library makes it so affordable.”
Gary Sheppard agrees. The 49-year-old former security guard dumps the contents of his cloth shoulder bag onto a work table in the Makerspace. A dozen blue and purple guitar picks tumble out. Some of the picks have zodiac symbols on them. A few have what appear to be names or logos — bumpy and incomplete — in relief on their surfaces.
“Those didn’t print so well,” he says.
But Sheppard’s real passion is dart stands. In the last two years, he’s used Tinkercad on the Makerspace’s iMacs to design or modify more than 2,000 stands that dart players use to hold three darts and maybe a bit of chalk as they play. He’s printed just a fraction of his designs.
He pays $3 in material for the stands. Sheppard then trades for $10 worth of dart supplies from a guy who, in turn, sells the custom-order stands for $15 to eager and serious dart players in leagues around the city.
Monica Socol, manager of the library’s digital technology services, is just fine with that. “We’re really pleased if we can give a small business a head start.”
Socol says the printers provide patrons a new form of literacy, a digital literacy that takes shape in software and reality.
The Makerspace provides classes for patrons who want to get an introduction to the craft and offers one-on-one assistance for more advanced projects.
“We want the Makerspace, and the library, to be a community hub and to give Hamiltonians new skills and opportunities,” Socol says.
Steve Spring, 36, is a good example of that. Spring has been on disability for 12 years after a warehouse accident. He taught himself 3D modelling and picks up design work when he can find it.
Standing in the Makerspace, he pulls two freshly minted plastic parts from a puffy manila envelope that had been waiting for him at the space’s reception desk. He explains he can’t talk much about what the parts are for because he’s under an nondisclosure agreement.
“Let’s just say they’re parts for a commercial video-game related product,” he says sotto voce.
Back on Cannon Street, Hall hopes that when his little prototype electric chairs become fullscale exhibit pieces, visitors will be able to select a chair for themselves and maybe even cinch up the leather straps with 3D printed buckles.
He’s got another electric chair set to print in a couple of days. When it’s done, it will sit next to maybe a blue panda cookie cutter, a red iPhone case or a yellow model of an Aztec pyramid waiting for other patrons.
When 3D printers are involved, literacy comes in all shapes and sizes.