We recently attended a professional learning session focusing on celebrating textiles with DATTA Vic. It was incredibly interesting and one part that we all enjoyed was 3D printing onto fabric. We thought this would be a good display piece for our gallery and to inspire students to create new and innovated safety gear during our Protective Moto Gear Program. We decided to do a test on some stretch mesh scraps one staff member had. A simple hexagon matrix was created and after adjusting the fabric to be tightly stretched across the print bed, the final result can be seen below. The fabric is still very flexible and could easily be attached onto an elbow or shoulder to offer more protection than just the fabric resulting in lightweight but protective gear. In future I want to play around with some chainmail like fabric which is made only on the 3D printers.
Emma
STEM Communication Officer