The McGoogan Library of Medicine held a ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier this summer to celebrate the arrival of a new Prusa Printer to be used by its Makers Club.
The new 3-D printer was imported from Prague, and was created by Josef Prusa, whom Makers Club faculty advisor and librarian Emily Glenn described as a young innovator in 3-D printing technology. The machine was purchased with the support of a grant from the College of Medicine Alumni Engagement Council.
“We often hear stories about how the Makers Club members helped an idea come to life or how they have brought such excitement to the conversation about 3-D printing in medicine at UNMC,” Glenn said. “The library has been proud to support the club’s outreach to community groups and high schools and their experimentation with 3-D printing and other ‘maker’ projects since the club formed in 2015.”
Although there had been test prints ahead of the “ribbon-cutting” event, the library invited members of the Makers Club and project collaborators to describe how they’ve used the machine and how their work can by supported by the new printer.
Will Payne, a member of the Maker’s Club and a pharmaceutics graduate student, said that a big part of the “maker movement” in 3-D printing is the open source community and building tools as a community, and the new Prusa printer would be a big asset to those goals.
“Prusa is a small company based out of the Czech Republic, but what is unique about them is that they are really into the open source and the community building printers, and making this technology better,” he said.
All Prusa instructions and designs can be found online, he said, which puts the printer “leaps and bounds” ahead of a lot of commercial options in the same price range.
The Prusa printer is currently available for use at the library.