Brett Morgan

TOPIC PROPOSAL

1. 3D Printing seems like something out of the future, but in reality, it has been going

on for years now and continues to become more advanced and applicable every

single day. Using a CAD (Computer Aided Design) program on the computer, users

design an item and can then print it in 3D using numerous horizontal layers, often

numbering into the thousands. This printing can make just about anything under the

sun and has even recently been used to create pieces of art. There are several types

of 3D printing including Selective Laser Sintering, Fused Deposition Modeling, and

Stereolithography. Ultimately, I will be trying to figure out exactly what practical

uses this process will have in the future. By using sites such as 3dprinting.com,

huffingtonpost.com, and several other newspaper articles, I can find out some of

these practical uses, but I will need to look deeper for everything else. For instance, I

will use databases and look at several different blueprints in order to figure out just

how these things work.

2. INITIAL INQUIRY QUESTIONS:

a. How can 3D printing change life, as we know it?

b. Are there downsides to 3D printing?

c. What would be the most common applications that we would see 3D printing

being used?

d. When is the soonest we can see 3D printing used in everyday life?

e. Is 3D printing cost-effective?

3. I would be very interested in finding out just about all there is to know about this

process. It seems like it has many uses and can be extremely beneficial to us in the

near future. I would really like to see if people would someday have public or even

personal use of these printers. I am also interested in seeing the exact process of

how these things work and which companies or corporations are using them today.

4. The next steps in this process would be to not only continue to do more in-depth

research, but to ask even more questions to myself. I’m fairly certain that there is an

abundance of information out there so I can definitely find more.

3D printers are really interesting and I think this will be a great topic. I know I would like t

know more about them and how they work. I don’t understand how something could do that.

You have some good questions and good resources.