Team Leader
Amanda Lacy
Texas A&M
Computer Science
aklacy@tamu.edu
Project Type
Research
Who Can Join
Faculty, Staff/Postdoctoral Scholars, Graduate Students, Masters Students, Undergraduate Students
Project Description
Qualifications- Junior or Senior
Experience using CAD and 3D printers (our work will primarily be done on a Creality Ender 5 pro).
You must commit to 10 hours per week, please don’t apply if you cannot meet this requirement. If you have time this summer, you can ‘bank’ hours working remotely so that you can have more flexibility during the semester. You will be required to log the hours that you work.
Please start your email subject line with “Aggie Research 3D printing” [your name]
I am a blind PhD student in Computer science who needs access to tactile graphics and a magnetic stylus for 3D computer interaction (see the group “Tactile VR with a magnetic stylus”).
Project goals are to design a system that can be independently operated by a blind user without requiring help from others. We will be using pro CAD to generate Braille as well as other 3D structures that integrate to print tactile graphics. The use of AI is very important, as we’d like the input to all be text-based. You will start by auditing tools and discovering which ones can be utilized without touching a mouse. The next step is to use that tool to modify 2D images for 3D printing or to generate completely new 3D models from text prompts. Finally, you will be using these files to print 3D tactile images with Braille labels. Preference is for a MacOS or iOS compatible workflow and command line. On-device open-source AI is a goal as well. Here is one tool we would like to evaluate: https://github.com/Text-to-CadQuery/Text-to-CadQuery
Here is a Braille generator from thingiverse that uses Open SCAD: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4167866
A second part of this project will be designing and printing several styluses for use with our 3D interaction system. These stylus models will house magnets in various orientations with sliding, twisting, and reorienting carriages for the magnets within the main body of the stylus. These two projects will run concurrently. You can contribute to both.
Team Needs
CAD, 3D printing and AI-generated 3D models.
Special Opportunities
Make something real and do the real-world iterative design, build and revise process that will be much more like the ‘real thing’ than most class projects.