The project entails four 3D printers in building GW2 being permanently in use for an estimated 120 hours. Piece by piece, the FabLab (Fabrication Laboratory) on the fourth floor is producing a three-dimensional model of the University campus. Once the printers have done their job it will be possible to actually feel and touch a perfect scale model of the University. It is planned that the sophisticatedly produced exhibit will be finished in time for OPEN CAMPUS on Saturday July 11, when it will be the showpiece in the Rectorate’s exhibition tent and used to exemplify the importance the University attaches to ‘diversity’, the guiding theme for the day.
Lars Grochla, a graduate of the University’s Digital Media program and volunteer in the FabLab Association, managed to complete the preparatory work just in time for OPEN CAMPUS. “We are very grateful to Professor Tobias Tkaczick in the Earth Sciences for all his help”, says Grochla. “Together with a group of students, he compiled the data forming the basis for the 3D animation of the campus”.
Everything in Bremen University red
The 20 campus buildings are being reproduced on the scale 1:100,000 in a form you can touch. The model includes familiar landmarks like the Drop Tower and the Universum. By OPEN CAMPUS day, all the individual components produced by the printers in 0.04 millimeter layers will have to be painstakingly put together in a night-and-day effort and fixed onto a meter-square base plate. The University administration building is already completed, and you can already touch the finely chased rows of windows. “We’re doing everything in Bremen University red”, says Grochla. The 3D printers produce the model buildings by spraying thin layers of PLA (polylactide) which is previously heated to a temperature of 220 degrees. He stresses that “We took particular care to use biologically degradable synthetic material comprising tactic acid molecules”.
A contribution to the concept of an ‘inclusive university’
Now the printers are humming over a comb-like blue print of the UFT building. The creator of this innovative model of the campus is confident it will be ready in time. On July 11 you will get your chance to actually feel and touch the University in the exhibition tent marked with the letter ‘I’, which denotes the Rectorate’s tent in Bibliotheksstraße. Professor Yasemin Karakaşoğlu, Vice Rectress for Internationality and Diversity, is particularly pleased with the touchable ‘eye-catcher’ she will be able to present on OPEN CAMPUS day. “In this way we want to convey the important role diversity plays at the University of Bremen. People with impaired sight will have the opportunity to explore the University by touch. Our aim is to be a university of equal opportunity, taking into account the varied prerequisites and needs of all the people who populate the campus so that everyone can develop their full potential. The scale model is intended to underscore this aspect, and above all to make it perceptible to the senses – and not only for persons with impaired sight.”
