Michael Vennard
Michael Vennard is a Mechanical Engineering undergraduate student at Michigan Technological University

I am a second year Mechanical Engineering student at Michigan Technological University.

Current Academic Involvement[edit | edit source]

The Honors Institute of Michigan Tech[edit | edit source]

The Honors Institute is a small program of ambitious Michigan Tech students whose work load exceeds that of normal college work. I am currently a member of the said program. We are required to complete three projects that are 20-25 hours of work each that are unpaid and do not count for school credit. We are also required to maintain a GPA of 3.5 in order to remain in the Institute and graduate with honors.

Operations Committee[edit | edit source]

I currently hold a chair on the Operations Committee of the Honors Institute. The Operations Committee is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the Institute and its budget. My most recent project focused on streamlining the process of applying for travel funds by Institute members.

Research Interests[edit | edit source]

• 3D Printing
  • Plastic and Metal
• Open Source Distributed Manufacturing
• Open Source Collaboration
  • Furthering the Open Source Community
• Efficiency of Photovoltaics
• Cost Effective Electrification of Developing Countries
• Advancement of Developing Countries using 3D Printing

Experience[edit | edit source]

Current Project: Honors Institute 3D Printer[edit | edit source]

I am currently starting a project with a partner, Michael D. Patrick, to build a 3D printer for use by members of the Honors Institute. We are also investigating the process of printing directly through CAD software, eliminating the need to convert to a .stl file to then open it in a program like Slic3r. Our current design is the Delta RepRap