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Scientists and students at the University of Washington have taken on a huge task in every sense: using 3D scanning and additive technologies, the team intends to restore the mammoth skeleton.
On the campus is the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, the oldest museum on the west coast of the United States, with a collection of 16 million exhibits. Among them are the remains of a huge mammoth, four meters in height, whose age is estimated at 13,000 years. The skeleton will become the main decoration of the new museum building, which is under construction, but before that, it needs to be restored, since most of the fragments were not found during excavations.
In total, about 20% of the bones were found, which is not so bad for such an ancient find. The rest will be replaced with 3D printed replicas - either mirror images of existing fragments, or edited copies of bones from other collections. Among other things, the team will also have to print huge tusks, whose length could reach three to four meters, based on the proportions of the remaining bones. Data collection is carried out using several methods at once, including computed tomography, photogrammetry and 3D laser scanning.
The parade is led by one of the faculty members of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering named Stephen Weidner. “We strive for excellence with every scan and print model. Engineering and scientific dictionaries don't use the word “fit,” so we must make sure that the results are as close to the originals as possible, ”says Weidner.
So far, the student team has several smaller printed bones, like vertebrae, on their hands. At the same time, various printing methods and 3D printers are being tested, because different devices give different results, with their own advantages and disadvantages. To help with the project, the group even hired WOOF3D, a university student 3D printer club, asking the makers to build a specialized large-format 3D printer, code-named Big Blue. The experimental machine with a working chamber with a volume of 1.5m³ will 3D print large bones, including the mammoth skull and mandible.
The long-term project attracted a very motley company: winter courses are offered by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, and in the spring the biological faculty will take over the baton. Future geologists, paleobiologists, designers, engineers, archaeologists and even photographers are taking part. The teachers are satisfied, because students have the opportunity not only to improve their knowledge in their specialty but also to adapt them to a joint project with future specialists in other fields, developing teamwork skills and just flexibility of thinking. And the project itself is of great interest: engineering students rarely take courses offered by the Faculty of Biology, but future designers of aircraft or racing cars may well find it useful to understand the principles of bionics using the example of real animals.
“The ability to work with artifacts and the latest scanning and simulation technologies? I signed up for the course right away. The methods and technologies used here are applied in 3D modeling and the production of scale models for testing in wind tunnels. That is, this is the knowledge that I will need in my specialty, ”explains a student of the Faculty of Engineering Kurt Weiss.
