PRINT A BONE IN 6 HOURS

CSU EAST BAY

What: Replacement arm, hand, leg and foot bones for a broken anatomical skeleton that will be donated to Tennyson High School in nearby Hayward, California

Who: CSU East Bay graduate student Andrew Denys, undergraduate 3D instructor Ben Hawklyn and 12 CSUEB undergraduates, guided by assistant professor Ian Pollock, associate professor Dr. Vanessa Yingling and Janiene Langford, interim director of CSUEB's Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement Center. The kinesiology and multimedia departments collaborate to offer workshops that teach 3D printing to CSUEB students and local high school students.

Material: Polylactic acid (PLA), which is biodegradable and uses less energy to produce

Time to Print: The skeleton's humerus took nine hours to print; the tibia and fibia, six hours each; and the femur (the largest bone in the body), 12 hours.

Lesson: “Anatomy skeletons are expensive, and when they break, they usually get thrown away," Denys explains. “CSUEB is using 3D printing as part of a transdisciplinary opportunity where students recreate missing bones before donating the rebuilt skeletons to local high schools."

"This workshop has greatly increased my knowledge of 3D printing. Learning about different kinds of software will give me a head start in engineering."

— Murshed Qasime, Tennyson High School junior