Pantastic; Social Construction of 3D Printing

Author:
Hendricks, Tyler, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Virginia

Advisor:
Ferguson, Sean, EN-Engineering and Society, University of Virginia

Abstract:

The technical portion of this thesis involved the design and construction of a device which measured the temperature of a stovetop in a contactless manner. The interest behind this was to design a device which could aid a home cook in knowing if a burner had reached an appropriate temperature as well as serving as an alarm in the event the stove was left on or became too hot.

The technical portion was completed by working in a team to design the electrical schematics, the device case, and write the code to run the device. The result was a fully functioning appliance that could measure temperature accurately from up to six feet away and send the data to a web application via WIFI.

The team accomplished all of the primary objectives and most of the secondary objectives and was extremely satisfied with the project. The only functionality the team wanted but did not implement was running the device over battery power. Future iterations of this project could be done to implement battery power, a on device screen, more user options, a smaller design, and a phone app.
The STS research thesis involved the examination of waste produced from 3D printing. The interest behind this was generated from the amount of plastic waste that was produced when 3D printing a case for the device built in the technical portion.

The goal of the research project was to understand what causes 3D printing to produce waste and how the social groups involved with 3D printing are reacting to this waste. This was achieved and several methods of waste management were researched and discussed. Further research could be performed by further understanding each of these waste management methods, society’s waste management issues in general, or the laws and regulations around plastic waste.

I would like to thank Professor Joanne Dugan and Professor Keith Willaims for serving as informal advisors to me and always answering my questions over my four years. I would like to thank Professor Harry Powell and Professor Todd Delong for guiding our team through the Capstone process and helping us along the way. I would like to thank my capstone team for their hard work and friendship. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for always supporting me, and especially for paying my tuition.

Degree:
BS (Bachelor of Science)

Keywords:
3D Printing, Social Construction of Technology, Social Construction of 3D Printing, Pantastic, Plastic waste, recycling, IR temperature sensor