The DreamVendor is an interactive 3D printing station for Virginia Tech students to enable them to quickly fabricate prototypes for their academic, and even personal, design projects.
The station is part of the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech.
To use it, you insert an SD card containing a 3D Model data file.
Then the printer goes to work fabricating your design.
DreamVendor brings 3-D printing out of the lab and into the hallway, turning 3-D printing into a spectacle, and introducing students to additive manufacturing processes without having to train them in proper use and maintenance. Passing by the machine, you can’t help but notice the shelves of attractively arranged samples flanking four MakerBots merrily humming along and making stuff. Williams says they’ve had a few stories of students who taught themselves how to design files for the machine “just because of the intrigue.”
