Outreach

We strive to share information with research peers, industry, educators, and the general public. We do this through peer-reviewed technical publications (for research peers), books (for industry and students), patents for commercialization (for industry), and other outreach efforts (for students and general public). One of the key outreach efforts is making files available for 3D printing compliant mechanisms. 

Our hope is that sharing will help others in their work and interests, broaden the impact of research and inspire its extension and application. Dissemination of new research often involves translating technical results into forms more accessible to broader society.  Sharing maker information, such as 3D printer files and fabrication instructions, can be a powerful and efficient way to increase the impact of research. Below are some public repositories and other resources  that we use to share  information and we hope they will be helpful to others. 

Printables

Printables is an excellent resource for sharing 3D printable files at no cost. Our lab's profile and files are at https://www.printables.com/@BYUCMR_1012603 

Instructables

Instructables is a wonderful resource for sharing projects beyond the 3D printing files that we share on the other repositories. The CMR profile can be found at https://www.instructables.com/member/BYUCMR/. 

Thingiverse

Our lab has many files for creating compliant mechanisms on the open source respository, Thingiverse. Our profile is https://www.thingiverse.com/byu_cmr/designs 

Outreach Publications

These papers provide insight on our outreach efforts: 

Howell, L.L., Bateman, T. Extending research impact by sharing maker information. Nature Communications 14, 6170 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41886-3 

Sheffield JL, Parkinson B, Bascom A, Bateman T, Magleby S, Howell LL (2024) Expanding research impact through engaging the maker community and collaborating with digital content creators. PLoS ONE 19(5): e0302449. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302449.   

Howell, L.L., Palma, L., Morgan, D.C., Bateman, T., Halverson, D., Magleby, S.P., “Outreach Potential of Displaying Research Artifacts in Art Museums,” Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Salt Lake City, Utah, June 24-27, paper #23444, 2018. https://peer.asee.org/outreach-potential-of-displaying-research-artifacts-in-art-museums