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W W W. M A I N E B I Z . B I Z 13 M A R C H 4 , 2 0 2 4 I N N OVAT I O N of experience and learning" in phys- ics, math, chemistry and design. e project was kickstarted by $35 mil- lion in federal funding. e GEM Factory of the Future will build on the success of two leg- acy programs at UMaine. e Foster Center for Innovation, led by Renee Kelly, who also oversees the commercialization support and innovation programs of the Univer- sity of Maine, including the MIRTA Accelerator program, Foster Center for Innovation, UMaine's I-Corps Site and business incubation programs. e Advanced Structures & Com- posites Center, which is led by Dr. Habib Dagher, has over the years devel- oped technology for offshore wind sys- tems and a widely adopted "Bridge in a Backpack," which has applications for the military, public infrastructure and development. More recently, the Advanced Struc- tures & Composites Center has become renowned for its giant 3D printer, which has produced boats and now houses. 3D-printed houses e University of Maine attracted global attention within the sustain- able design community when its engi- neers unveiled a house entirely man- ufactured by a 3D printer whose ink was made of wood residue. The University of Maine's 3D printer is the largest in the world, capa- ble of producing objects up to 100 feet long by 22 feet wide by 10 feet high. The university subjected the 3D-printed house prototype to a bat- tery of field tests to gauge its dura- bility in Maine winters. After a year of leaving the prototype house outside and using sensors and observations to measure every inch of the place, the project team confirmed the 600-square-foot house is livable. e homes could be both afford- able and predominantly made with bio- based materials, according to Dagher of the University of Maine Advanced Structures and Composites Center. A 600-square-foot house requires some 10 tons of wood residuals, mean- ing homes could be produced using the waste byproduct from sawmills, UMaine says. CNCs meets the Knights of the Roundtable On a smaller scale than the house, UMaine students and faculty used 3D scanning, combined with lay- ered Computer Numerical Control machining, to produce a life-sized sculpture of a medieval knight. e sculpture looks like stone but is actually made from poplar wood, sourced from Kings Mountain Hard- wood in Orrington. Sean Michael Taylor, a research engineer for UMaine's Innovative Media Research and Commercializa- tion Center, created the sculpture for History Live! North East, a nonprofit in Knox County that offers K–12 schools history lessons that involve showcasing and demonstrating various artifacts. e project, which took more than two years, started with Ian Donnelly, who has since graduated from UMaine. He designed a 3D-model of the knight primarily through photogrammetry, a process that involved stitching together numerous photos of the nonprofit's founder, Matt Blazek, dressed in armor. From there, Taylor and his stu- dents, James LeBlanc, Ian Beckett, Mason Bloomquist and Maine Space Grant Consortium MERITS Pro- gram Intern Cooper Parlee refined the design and coded instructions for how IMRC technology could bring it to life. ey shared a file with both with the CNC machine at the center, which milled the knight from a large block of wood in many two-inch layers over 24 hours of actual cutting time. Taylor and his students then glued the layers together, scraped out excess wood and added details to the sculp- ture by referencing the 3D model in the software viewer and examining it from different angles. Peter Van Allen, Mainebiz editor, can be reached at pvanallen @ mainebiz.biz B r i d g e t R e e d M o r a w s k i c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h i s r e p o r t . P H O T O S / F R E D F I E L D From left, civil engineering seniors Parker Harriman, Grace Bradish, Nara Narith and Ana Ortiz in the Consigli Construction Commons area of the Ferland Engineering Education and Design Center. Giacomo Pellizzari cuts a cover for a solar desalinator with an assist from fellow senior Joseph Begos. Students study in the Ferland Engineering Education and Design Center. Seniors Katie Holmes and Tyler Bishop work on a lithium polymer battery-powered cargo plane. F O C U S

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