MONDAY

All I did was basically understand and know the simple commands of gcode so I can get the lines to print exactly how I wanted it to be. I understood what “F” meant, which was the feed rate, or in layman’s terms, the speed in which the printer goes. That day as well, my mentor and I met up with my PI to talk about our progress before he headed out to a conference. And this is where I showed my line tests to him, he was impressed by it to be honest. However, there was one thing that I forgot to do, and that was to evaluate “E”, or the extrusion rate. That day I felt like my confidence fell down a bit, but the bright side of it all is that I learned something from it.

Horinzontal Line TestTUESDAY

We had our usual REU meeting where we discuss about goals and aspirations of where do you want to be in the foreseeable future versus where you’re at right now. Then headed off to George R. Brown Hall to where we did a little icebreaker-sort of activity. I headed off to print some more line strips, as well as mess around with the extrusion rate parameters. Then all of a sudden, the printer jammed and it couldn’t work. I watched some videos on YouTube to see what I can do, and I also went on reddit to figure it out. But nothing happened, I felt hopeless. That determination was really testing me this time around. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it once I got back home.



THURSDAY

The first I did was try to fix the printer. That’s all I thought about the day before. But then it clicked, after seeing video after video, and reading reddit comment after reddit comment. The problem was the wiring. So I went upstairs because there was a replica 3D printer that was fully-functional, and I saw how it was wired. And there it was, problem fixed. Yet, there was one more hurdle to overcome, and that was the filament itself. You see, depending on the type of filament that you use. In this case, the filament that I am using was PLA, it can be prone to dryness and moisture. So I just set the temperature in the filament dryer for 3 hours, and that was it. I printed the benchmark print to see if the printer was up and running, and it did print out the benchy. And I felt relieved.


FRIDAY

We went to the Sugarland Surface Water Treatment Plant where we got see the water treatment process and the like. It was interesting and all. But, once I got back to my lab, I felt a bit queasy and ill. It was probably the smell of the plant that sent me into sensory overload. So therefore, that’s is how I got sick. I was gagging a bit when I was thinking about having lunch with my REU mates. And when I got there, my stomach was hurting, and ate nothing at all of course. So I decided to let my mentor know that I would leaving early because I wasn’t feeling so good. And thankfully, she understood.

 


Thank you for reading,
Brandon Espinoza.