SUMMARY: Worked in teams to write about topics members were working on

DESCRIPTION:

-Geocaching

This paper focuses on how Geocaching was starting to affect enthusiasts and would become more prevalent as time went on. Geocaching is a pastime that is essentially hide-and-seek using GPS. An object is hid (cached) and enthusiasts use GPS data as clues that will point to the next location and clue until someone is able to find the treasure.

The purpose/prompt of this paper was to talk about how a technology could be integrated into daily/recreational life and to show how the technology benefits a person and the community they participate in. The overall lesson can be summarized as follows: as we start to live in an increasingly virtual space and technology forces people inside, this is one technology that does exactly the opposite and enables/pushes people to go OUTSIDE, visit new places, and interact with members of a close-knit community. These benefits can include a slew of mental health benefits, physical health benefits, and an appreciation of the foundations of how our modern communication systems work as well as an appreciation of the outdoors.

If you are interested in this subject, I highly encourage you to read the included paper for a brief introduction into the topic

-3D Printing Styles

This paper is about how different 3D printing techniques such as Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), and Stereolithography (SLA) were being used at the time as well as where people foresaw the technologies to go. For this paper, I teamed up with 3 other engineers to research this information and used my own experience with 3D Printing in making this paper.

There are 5 key takeaways from this paper.

1. 3D Printing is highly versatile in it’s form, usage, applicability for product prototyping and development

2. 3D Printing allows companies to build custom tooling quickly or forego the tooling process altogether and make the part as needed.

3. 3D Printing improves productivity and efficiency of the adopters

4. 3D Printing saves time and money from a variety of different sources

5. 3D Printing will get cheaper as more entities start to use it, driving down prices and making it more mainstream