Category: What’s happening in the Library?

Three on the Third is a monthly series in which we highlight three books new to the library collection.  Summaries of the books will be provided along with shelf location and a link to the item in the catalog.

Writings on the Wall
by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Basketball legend and cultural commentator Kareem Abdul-Jabbar explores how the America of today is a fractured society, sharply divided along the lines of race, gender, religion, political party and economic class. In his celebrated second career as a writer and social critic, Abdul-Jabbar examines these issues with insight and passion as he draws from his own experiences as a superstar athlete, an inquisitive scholar, a celebrity, a father, an African American and a Muslim. In his columns for Time, the Washington Post and other national publications, he has garnered wide attention for opinions that are unconventional yet disarmingly rational in a time of political absurdity. In this new collection of essays, he probes the roots of bias and unfairness that remain a stubborn part of America, even 240 years after its founding document declared that all Americans are created equal. He makes a compelling case for how America can create equal opportunity for all its citizens, not just the few and the favored.  Summary provided by the publisher
Catalog Link – Writings on the Wall
HN90.S6 A23 2016

The Almost Sisters
by Joshilyn Jackson

With empathy, grace, humor, and piercing insight, the author of Gods in Alabama pens a powerful, emotionally resonant novel of the South that confronts the truth about privilege, family, and the distinctions between perception and reality–the stories we tell ourselves about our origins and who we really are. Superheroes have always been Leia Birch Briggs’ weakness. One tequila-soaked night at a comics convention, the usually level-headed graphic novelist is swept off her barstool by a handsome and anonymous Batman. It turns out the caped crusader has left her with more than just a nice, fuzzy memory. She’s having a baby boy–an unexpected but not unhappy development in the thirty-eight year-old’s life. But before Leia can break the news of her impending single-motherhood (including the fact that her baby is biracial) to her conventional, Southern family, her step-sister Rachel’s marriage implodes. Worse, she learns her beloved ninety-year-old grandmother, Birchie, is losing her mind, and she’s been hiding her dementia with the help of Wattie, her best friend since girlhood. Leia returns to Alabama to put her grandmother’s affairs in order, clean out the big Victorian that has been in the Birch family for generations, and tell her family that she’s pregnant. Yet just when Leia thinks she’s got it all under control, she learns that illness is not the only thing Birchie’s been hiding. Tucked in the attic is a dangerous secret with roots that reach all the way back to the Civil War. Its exposure threatens the family’s freedom and future, and it will change everything about how Leia sees herself and her sister, her son and his missing father, and the world she thinks she knows.  Summary provided by publisher
Catalog Link – The Almost Sisters
PS3610.A3525 A78 2017

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
by Neil deGrasse Tyson
What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? Today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, in tasty chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day. While you wait for your morning coffee to brew, for the bus, the train, or a plane to arrive, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry will reveal just what you need to be fluent and ready for the next cosmic headlines: from the Big Bang to black holes, from quarks to quantum mechanics, and from the search for planets to the search for life in the universe.  Summary provided by publisher
Catalog Link – Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
QB461 .T97 2017

You may have noticed some interesting new items at the Instructional Design & Technology Desk. There has always been the poster prints, DSLR Cameras and even 4K digital cinema cameras, but now it is home to a 3D printer and 3D scanner! Over the summer, Lily Zhang used a grant from the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges to purchase an Ultimaker 3 printer and a Matter and Form 3D scanner.

The 3D printer uses a process known as fused deposition modeling (some call it fused filament fabrication, tomāto/tomăto), where plastic filament is melted and deposited on top of previously deposited plastic. Think of it like a can of whipped cream; you can spray some onto your sundae, and if you wanted to (you do want to), you could spray another layer of whipped cream on top of what’s already there. You’re fusing the whipped cream by depositing more on top of itself. In this case, instead of delicious dairy toppings, we’re using spools of specific types of plastic filament.

via GIPHY

There is a world of plastics available, each for a different purpose. For the time being, our printer is using ABS, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (like LEGO!) and PLA, polylactic acid (the clear clamshell your berries come in!). ABS is strong, durable and temperature resistant but can be a little persnickety in printing. Oh, and it smells like melting plastic when it is printing. PLA, on the other hand, is really easy to print with, leaves a really nice surface finish and smells like waffles when it is printing (it’s made from things like cornstarch and sugarcane); but can deform at temperatures you’d find outdoors and just isn’t as strong as ABS. Both of these plastics serve a purpose (see a simple comparison here, a more scientific one here), and both work really well in the library’s printer.

Ok, so we have the fused part and the deposition part, but that doesn’t make us a nifty print. For that the printer needs to know where to put the melting plastic. The modeling part comes from computer software. This takes a model you’ve created or downloaded and creates a path for the printer to follow, called a toolpath.

This is a toolpath rendered for us to see.

The toolpath tells the 3D printer where in 3-dimensions to move the print head and where to push out the plastic. The printer can work in a total volume of 215mm³; or roughly an eight inch cube. In that cube the printer can move as little as 12.5µ, or 0.0125mm: the hair on your head is ~80µ! This is just to say that this 3D printer can create models that are very detailed.

To breakdown the process for you, let’s say you’d like to print something for your chemistry class. You’ve found a 3D model of insulin that looks really cool. You download the associated file (usually an *.stl or *.obj) and load it into the printing software. In that software you choose how detailed and dense you’d like it to be. Does it need to be pretty rigid? Does it need to be able to bend a little? Do you want it to be 300% its normal size, or 25%? You can choose your filament based on these and other questions. The software spits out the toolpath, which you can then load into the printer. Once loaded, the printer will heat up (remember, we’re melting plastic) and begin laying down plastic. Depending on the details you’ve chosen it could take a few hours to a few days for prints to complete.

The library will be having workshops covering 3D printing in much more detail throughout the semester. For the time being, if you would like to experiment with this technology, please contact Lily Zhang or Gardner Treneman.

Here are a few places to check for already created models you may want to print:

• Youmagine
• Thingiverse
• Tinkercad
• Sketchfab