All posts by Chad Mairn

Innovation Lab hosts International Visitor Leadership Program

computer technology, Technology Events

The Innovation Lab on St. Petersburg College‘s Seminole campus hosted another World Partnerships and United States Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) for their U.S. Technology and Solutions for Waste-to-Energy Initiatives project for Pakistan. There were visitors from the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency, the Punjab and Sindh Energy Departments, the Green Building Council and other Pakistani energy organizations.

The group had an informative virtual meeting with Peter Keller, Managing Director at Berkeley Research Group, where they had a wide-ranging conversation on waste to energy projects, state-of-the-art technology, and sustainable energy. Keller has advised key utility clients as the industry went through major deregulation and began to confront the challenges of climate change and the need to decarbonize. Visitors were given a tour of the Innovation Lab on the SPC Seminole Campus after the virtual meeting.

Other projects

As Librarian and Manager of the Innovation Lab, I have partnered with World Partnerships for a few years. Back in November 2019, I met with eight scientists representing Vietnam, Estonia, Egypt, Zambia, South Africa, Paraguay, Malta, and Argentina to support the Hidden No More: Empowering Women Leaders in STEM project, sponsored by the IVLP Division. They continued to meet virtually over the years and, in fact, had plans to meet inside virtual reality, but there were difficulties getting equipment due to strict export controls. Regardless, they have had success using more traditional tools like Zoom to stay connected. This IVLP program is coming back later this year!

In 2021, I moderated an e-sports/gaming panel, where twenty participants from Argentina, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela all logged in from across the Western Hemisphere to discuss Video Games for STEAM and Entrepreneurship, hosted by The U.S. Department of State, Cultural Vistas, World Partnerships, and Games for Change.  

World Partnerships has a worldwide mission for educational, cultural, commercial and professional exchange with current and emerging global leaders. U.S. Embassies and Consulates in more than 100 countries have screened the movie Hidden Figures for international audiences, generating discussions on race, gender equality, and women in STEM careers. These successful screenings inspired the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) where women leaders who represented “hidden talent” in their home countries visit the United States to explore U.S. efforts to prepare women and girls for careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.

3D Printing to the Rescue Again!

3D Printing
College of Computer and Information Technology, computer technology, Featured

When Tom Hurley, Senior Facilities Specialist in Facilities Planning & Institutional Services at St. Petersburg College, recently visited the iLab at SPC’s Seminole campus, it was for an interesting type of tech help. Hurley came to see if the iLab could 3D print a part that he was looking for. When an actuator connector, which helps control many of SPC’s water temperature valves, fails, it costs over $200 to replace the entire electric actuator controller. Hurley found that the iLab could print these actuator connectors on demand so that a repair could happen very quickly while saving the college money.

SPC’s iLab has been working with 3D printing technologies since 2014 and has printed many different objects over the years for students, faculty, and the public.

3D printing, sometimes called additive manufacturing, is a process of making three-dimensional objects from digital files that are created using CAD (computer-aided design) software and/or 3D scanners. 3D design applications and 3D printing are not new technologies, but they seem to have taken over the world. 3D printed cars, homes, prosthetics, food, tools and prototypes are more frequently making their way into our news feeds.

To print a part, an object file is sent to the 3D printer software (e.g., Repetier) and sliced to create multiple layers. A material is selected, often plastic, rubber, nylon, resin, ceramic, steel, gypsum or wood. The Innovation Lab (iLab) on St. Petersburg College’s Seminole Campus uses PLA (Polylactic Acid), a bio-degradable polymer that can be produced from lactic acid, which can be fermented from crops such as maize.

Joshua Stein, a recent St. Petersburg College graduate and former iLab student assistant and tutor, designed the actuator connector part, and 20 connectors were printed for Facilities departments throughout the college to use when these parts need replacing. One connector takes less than 10 minutes to print.

Nick Chase, Facilities Technician on the Seminole Campus, says 3D printing replacement parts is a win for the college.

3D Printing
Original wheel
3D Printing
3D printed replacement wheel

“Printing the wheels that are running our automatic sliding doors can save the college up to $90 per part because we no longer have to purchase the entire sensor kit to replace those wheels when they break,” Chase said.

The replacement wheels, if printed solid, take a little over one hour to print and will use about 1,000 mm of filament, which would cost less than 25 cents for materials.

For more information about 3D printing at SPC, check out our article published in Computers in Libraries Magazine, “St. Petersburg College’s Innovation Lab: How We Built a 3D Printer … Almost”.