UofL engineers design model to help Patrick Henry Hughes ‘see’ his new home
November 15th, 2007
A 3-D model helps Patrick Hughes “see” his family’s new house for the first time. photo courtesy of Pfoto.com Patrick L. Pfister.
University of Louisville engineers have worked to help Patrick Henry Hughes “visualize” his family’s new home under construction through the television program “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”
Hughes, who is blind, will be able to feel the shape and layout inside and out through a plastic model of the home, thanks to efforts at the Rapid Prototyping Center at UofL’s J.B. Speed School of Engineering.
Using two-dimensional layouts of the home, graduate mechanical engineering student Damon Stacy spent most of last weekend developing a three-dimensional computerized model.
He and others at the Rapid Prototyping Center loaded the model into a machine called a select laser sintering device, which melts powdered plastic and then slowly builds the actual piece up by layers. The plastic house model measures 18 inches by 15 inches by 7 inches — one-75th the house’s scale, according to Tim Gornet, manager of rapid prototyping operations at Speed.
The work was completed about midnight Tuesday and delivered to the “makeover” team at 8 a.m. Wednesday so that Hughes could be presented with the model during his home’s “reveal” later in the day.
“The parts look great, and the house model looks great,” Gornet said.
Gornet said the project took many hours, including 25 in the computer modeling, 22 hours in the machine and another 10 to get it ready with gluing and other finishing touches.
The Rapid Prototyping Center works with industry ranging from Fortune 100 companies to individual inventors to develop prototypes of products as well as direct digital manufacturing without the need for tooling. The models help companies more quickly detect flaws, make improvements and get their products to market.
