Students at Valparaiso University’s College of Engineering are making a difference in the rapidly-growing 3D printing industry.
Biomechanical engineering major Ian Bos, computer engineering major Nate Peyer, and mechanical engineering major Kyan Luckett, along with their partners at the University of California Berkeley, are exploring a new, faster, less wasteful method of fabrication and finding ways to make it more affordable to more people.
Traditional 3D printing involves pushing resin out of a small nozzle, which traces the outline of the desired object before building it layer by layer. While effective, this method can take a significant amount of time, and leaves the final object with visible layer lines that can reduce its overall strength. Bos, Peyer and Luckett, meanwhile, are exploring the possibilities of Volumetric-Additive Manufacturing, which projects an image through a tube of liquid resin to create the final product.
“There is a way to calculate the amount of light each little bit of resin is exposed to, and if you can calculate and control that, you can selectively solidify resin only where you want to create the object,” said Bos who is a La Porte High School graduate. “It prints everything at once, in seconds or minutes rather than hours or days, and you don’t have layer lines.”
VAM systems typically come with price tags in the thousands of dollars, but the version the Valpo team is working with has been put together for $20 out of ordinary hardware store components, a few traditionally 3D printed pieces, and a discarded projector that’s been modified to project the correct light. This printer, and other resources in the Fites Innovation Center’s 3D Printing Lab, are being put toward developing software to handle those precise light calculations.
The project has been made possible by the university’s Guild Undergraduate Creative Work and Research Expense Grant program, funded by the University Guild’s Student Research Endowment Fund. The grant is open to all undergraduate students at the university, and gives $10,000 of assistance to student projects on an annual basis.
As someone who has been fascinated by VAM printing since high school, the opportunity to explore the technology in college is part of what drove Bos to study at Valparaiso University in the first place.
“Valpo is a very free university in the sense that it lets you explore,” Bos said. “If I tried to do this at many other universities, they wouldn’t have necessarily been as open to me starting my own project like this.”
The team first learned of the grant through Stan Zygmunt, professor of physics and astronomy, who encouraged them to apply for initial funding.
“These grants are important opportunities for Valpo students to have an introduction to the world of grant applications and research funding with a relatively simple process,” Zygmunt said. “Even though the research grants are usually capped at $500, that can make a lot of impact on a student project in its initial stages.”
The VAM team at Valpo presented their findings at the 2025 Symposium on Undergraduate Research and Expression. Their work can be found here. Learn more about undergraduate grant opportunities at Valparaiso University here.
