Newly acquired three-dimensional printers in professor Rod Strickland’s visual arts sculpture studio are opening creative possibilities for students in the UWindsor School of Creative Arts, as well as campus entrepreneurs.

These virtual tools replace such traditional tools as chisel and clay and come in the form of 3D scanning and printing technology, which allow students to create and build hard plastic artistic creations from digital files.

Funding for the scanners and printers came in part from the Entrepreneurship Practice and Innovation Centre (EPICentre). In addition to works of art, students will use the technology to help anyone on campus print unique entrepreneurial inventions and create 3D prototypes for design, sculpture and engineering.

“Students can now work in a more interdisciplinary fashion outside of the art school, with other people who have creative ideas, or entrepreneurial ideas, and don’t know how to realize these things,” says Strickland. “They can actually become both the artist, as well as the artist of the entrepreneurial creation.”

3D printers build objects through a process called additive manufacturing. From a digital file, the printer renders a solid, physical object using successive layers of liquid plastic that harden quickly.

The accurate and stable 3D models can be built with both a commercial grade plastic, as well as an organic-based plastic made from renewable resources. The models are not limited by the imagination, but are restricted by a footprint of 223 x 223 x 305 millimetres (8.5 x 8.5 x 12 inches). Strickland says larger objects can be built in modules and assembled after printing.

Students are trained on a software program called Rhinoceros, which they use to design original 3D images or manipulate images created by scanning objects with a 3D scanner. Digital sculpture is new to the curriculum this semester.

For his own research, Strickland is working with alumnus David Bobier (MFA 1984) of VibraFusionLab, and Ryerson University’s Inclusive Media Design Centre to design a mat from microphone parts that will ultimately help the hearing impaired enjoy live performances through sounds and vibrations.

“This is just the beginning stages of the designing elements that will be 3D printed, but I’ve come up with a grid that takes a sections of piezo based speakers, which transfer the audio vibrations,” he says. “We are working with technologies that will enhance deaf experience of sound performances, whether film or live performance, by creating a blanket, or mat, that slides behind a person, sitting in any chair so they can feel vibrations and be a part of the performance like never before.”

Ontario Centres of Excellence and Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs also provided funding for the 3D Print Lab.

Entrepreneurs interested in using the fee-for-service print facility located in room 133-A, LeBel Building, can visit 3D Print Lab, phone 519-253-3000, ext. 2910, or e-mail 3dprint@uwindsor.ca.

An exhibition opening this week at the Leddy Library will celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Alexandre-Édouard Kierzkowski, elected to Canada’s inaugural parliament in 1867—the first Polish-Canadian member of the House of Commons.

Kierzkowski, who died in 1870, was also a civil engineer and military officer.

The exhibition is a collaborative effort of the library and the Polish-Canadian Business and Professional Association of Windsor. After its display in the Leddy Library, it will travel to the Ontario legislature, Parliament Hill in Ottawa and the Polish parliament in Warsaw.

A brief ceremony will officially open the exhibition on the library’s first floor at 3 p.m. Wednesday, March 16.

Adding colourful fruits and vegetables to your diet ensures that you get a range of essential nutrients.

The March edition of Workplace Wellness E-Digest, published by the Department of Human Resources’ Office of Employee Engagement and Development, offers information on how to colour your plate every day for better health, how to store fresh produce to keep it fresh, and how to freeze fruits and vegetables to retain their nutritional value. Read the Workplace Wellness E-Digest.

The Humanities Research Group will host University of Massachusetts, Amherst, professor emeritus Nancy Folbre for a lecture Thursday as part of its series on the theme “Off the Page: Ideas that Walk and Talk in the World.”

Dr. Folbre will deliver her free public presentation, entitled “Women, Labour, and History,” at 5 p.m. March 17 in Katzman Lounge, Vanier Hall. She is an internationally renowned scholar whose work links theory with the realities of everyday life in North America—an expert who asks us to rethink our assumptions about the way things work, the way knowledge is produced, and the value we give to the labour of those who care for others in our society.

Folbre is the author of the books Greed, Lust and Gender: A History of Economic Ideas and Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values, among others. She is a regular contributor to the New York Times Economix blog. Folbre’s books focus on the often forgotten needs of women and children; the health care industry; the problems of higher education; the invisible labour of women; as well as on family values, and governmental policy.

The Campus Bookstore is highlighting products from Blue Q as its featured items this week, including socks, pencil cases and fridge magnets with witty sayings.

The socks are woven with luxurious combed cotton for softness, nylon for strength and a touch of spandex for long-lasting fun.