Here’s a story at the intersection of entertainment and engineering that will tug on your heart strings, so to speak.

A school superintendent in Pennsylvania, Laura Jacob, noticed that students from low-income families had difficulty purchasing violins for music, and came up with a solution inspired by something she had heard of an orchestra doing: 3D-printing instruments.

In the past five years, Jacob has 3D-printed 200 violins that are free for students in a school where 70% of them are low income.

Violins can be very expensive, even relative to other instruments. It can cost hundreds in rental fees for the families of students, if they want their child to have the opportunity to learn violin in school.

Jacob started out with two 3D printers. She now says she has 34 of them, and students can learn to use the machines, too.

“I’m not a computer scientist or an engineer by any means, but after a variety of failures, I found one that actually printed and it sounded good,” Jacob told CBS News.

The violins are made from a template created by a company called Hova Labs. Beyond that, Jacob used real violin strings, a few additional wooden parts, and then added modified guitar pegs.

The whole process takes about three days to finish a violin. If the instrument breaks (probably a strong possibility with schoolchildren), they can easily be fixed.

As a fun added benefit, the 3D-printed violins can be made in different colors, which might make the instrument more interesting for kids.

Prusa 3D Printers

The Prusa XL 3D printers are designed for precision. According the company website, “the precision tolerance of a well-assembled Original Prusa printer is 0,1 mm on the Z-axis and 0,3 mm on X and Y.” 

And the company says that calibrations can be done to further improve the result. “It can be as little as 0,05 mm on all axes, after making additional calibrations such as the Extrusion multiplier calibration and Extruder linearity correction.”

The magnetic heatbed can hold a two-sided flexible spring-steel sheet, for removal of printed objects from the print surface, according to the product page for the Prusa XL. 

There are six varieties of sheets for the Prusa XL: smooth, powder-coated textured, PA Nylon, PP, and HighTemp, all of which serve a specific type of 3D-print job.

For information: 

Hova Labs: https://www.hovalabs.com/ 

Prusa Research https://www.prusa3d.com/ 

CBS Interview with Laura Jacob: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pennsylvania-school-3d-printers-violins/ 

Cover photo: u_l5sf233ead, Pixabay