Panther FabLab featured in local media outlets

NEW LEXINGTON — State career-tech funds aided New Lexington High School in purchasing $50,000 worth of equipment to create the Panther FabLab at the high school three years ago.

But students and community members have been slow to pick up on what the facility could mean when it comes to steering them to engineering studies and careers, or helping local businessesdevelop prototypes of products without hefty research and development costs.

Just a handful of students in engineering instructor Mike Kunselman’s classes are taking advantage of hands-on tutelage in advanced manufacturing techniques through class projects and student-run fundraisers.

The community is now being invited in once a week to work hand-in-hand with the students to find practical applications for the new technology, which includes a 3-D printer, vinyl cut printer and laser cutter.

“There’s a community FabLab, sort of like abusiness incubator in the Columbus area, where a business can pay a monthly fee and use all of the equipment,” Kunselman said. “We could have something like that on a small scale here. I can see this program growing, because there is nothing like it right now in any public high school in our area.”

The concept

The local FabLab, or fabrication lab, is an offshoot of a class at MIT that was called “How to make (almost) anything,” Kunselman said.

“I started the fab lab to facilitate the engineering courses that were being taught,” he said. “They are taking what they learn in the classroom and applying that to making a product and selling it. You can teach theory and sit in the classroom and students learn the computer-aided design software, but it’s hard to put that to practical use if you don’t have the equipment.”

This is the second full year of FabLab.

While he usually has between 80 to 100 students in his engineering classes, there are only about six to eight students on average taking part in the after-school, hands-on lab so far.

“These are the most interested, that find value in this work,” he said.

The process

During a recent after-school session, students such as senior Walker Clark and junior Phoebe Sampson worked on smoothing out the bubbles in vinyl letters that spell out various teachers names. The finished products later were affixed to classroom doors.

The students are using what they learn to raise funds for the class by producing and then selling items such as picture frames, Christmas ornaments and clipboards, plus whistles using biodegradable plastic for the school’s sports coaches. All the plastic items are produced on a 3-D printer.

“I think it’s a good building and learning tool,” said Clark, now in his fourth year of engineering classes with Kunselman. Clark is planning to study civil engineering at Ohio Northern University. “We’re learning how to price our products, it’s all student-run. It’s stuff you can’t learn in the regular classroom.”

Fellow senior Josh Martinez, also headed to ONU for engineering, agreed.

“This class is probably the best thing I’ve could have done. We’re making things that make the school look nicer and we’re also helping to raise money for the school,” Martinez said. “It’s quite fun and enjoyable. Instead of just doing paperwork in a class, we’re getting real-life experience and using our science and math skills.”

Kunselman said the vinyl lettering and “frosting” for classroom windows at the school is being sold to teachers for $10.

“They’ve also created some posters to advertise AP classes. They are learning skills that just compound on each other,” he said. “If you can think it up, they will create it on the computer and make it. They are figuring out the costs, what kind of return-on-investment they’d like and they do all of the billing electronically.”

Next steps

Community outreach provides an opportunity for residents and businesses to give the new tech a spin. It’s also a requirement of the FabLab’s inclusion in the global fab lab network being developed by MIT.

Some community members and businesses have already sought assistance with vinyl advertising signs and quilt patterns, with students in the lab helping with design, Kunselman said.

“This is the new woodshop, really, only where you used to cut wood, we’re lasering it,” Kunselman said. “We’re open to the community. We’re making the lab available to anyone on Mondays. If someone has a product they are working on or want to learn how to make something, our students will be here to help.”

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