Last month, CHS visited Capitol Hill’s only dedicated “maker space” and 3D printing facility as Metrix: Create marked its fourth year in business on Broadway. Here is an example of an interesting project currently underway at the 623 Broadway E space that showcases some of the cool possibilities for creation as big time fabrication technologies are made more and more accessible thanks to places like Metrix:

Giant Foam MRI at Metrix
If you have been to Metrix in the last few months, you have probably noticed the tiny bits of pink foam floating around and clinging to everything. They happened to be the byproduct of the largest fabrication project Metrix has worked on so far. It was a fun and experimental project that led us to get to know our biggest robot, the giant router, very well.

Several months ago, Frederick “Fritz” Reitz wandered down the stairs into Metrix to find out more about all of our fabrication capabilities. He needed a full-scale replica of an MRI machine. We certainly hadn’t done anything of that size but we love a good challenge so we took on the project.

After much discussion, we chose to work with 2 inch thick, 4 ft by 8 ft sheets of rigid foam insulation. The material is great for shaping with the router because it is light, uniform, and can be easily finished with a bit of sandpaper. It provides a good structure for complex geometries that will need to get epoxied and painted.

What made this project particularly exciting was that it had a pretty great real-life application.The replica was requested by Tom Grabowski, who is a professor of radiology & neurology at the University of Washington. His plan is to use it to get test subjects used to the machine off-line. Time on the real MRI is very expensive so this allows for refining testing teqniques and getting the subjects more comfortablewith the machine. He went to the Center for Human Development and Disability at the University of Washington for help on this. The Center is funded by a NIH grant to support research in human development and disability in such areas as autism, language acquisition, and cognitive development. The Center has their own Instrument Development Lab, where Fritz works. The Lab was tasked with the actual fabrication of the replica-MRI, which is what brought Fritz to Metrix. More here…