Updates to 3D Printing Resources Planned for Fall 2026

Students new and returning to the GSD in the Fall 2026 semester will benefit from updates to the self-serve 3D printing equipment made available on the third floor south studio space of Gund Hall. To make the change, access to existing resources will be significantly restricted over the summer.

Community Input

Responses to the survey conducted in Fall 2025 informed our priorities for this project:

• improve quality (and speed) of printed parts,
• make access to new 3D printing technology more equitable,
• maintain the self-service access model.

Feedback

As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions, concerns, or other feedback.

Planned Updates

Hardware

As our original goal was to identify hardware that could be connected to the network via ethernet cable, the ideal scenario for stable and secure on-campus connectivity, we identified and evaluated the:

• Creality K2 Pro
• Prusa CORE One+
• Bamub X1 Carbon

In consultation with cloud management service providers and anticipating that future development of 3D printing hardware would be seen first in devices that offered only Wi-Fi connectivity, we’ve also included for consideration the:

• Bambu P2S
• Snapmaker U1

Our evaluation of this equipment considers:

• ease of use by those new to the process,
• speed, consistency, and quality of output,
• ease of maintenance considering the anticipated use case,
• availability of parts and supplies in bulk,
• control and integration of features with cloud management service.

Although things could change, we are currently planning to introduce the Bambu P2S as the primary device for student self-service access to 3D printing at the GSD, in both the billable material and user-supplied material access methods.

Software

With a rapidly changing list of hardware options, cloud-based management platform needs to maintain this same pace in order to allow access to the features available.

Our evaluation of available cloud services includes the following operational needs:

• ease of use by those new to the process,
• ability to specify slicing parameters that fully engage hardware features,
• organizational control of user access by groups,
• ability to restrict amount of use by a number of measures,
• access to job data for automated billing processes.

We are actively working with potential vendors to continue to provide cloud slicing and access to the selected hardware.

Timeline