Brian Michel was fascinated by the night sky as a young child. Now the Guelph man wants to bring the same fascination to youth with 3D printed telescopes.
The initiative called TenTelescopes gives people the opportunity to borrow 3D printed telescopes built by Michel and a group of volunteers.
The idea to make a 3D printed telescope came about when Michel’s niece, who was 11-years-old at the time and was interested in astronomy, asked him how she could have her own telescope.
With that he decided to build her one. He designed, printed and assembled a prototype. Then worked out all the bugs and gave her a working 3D printed telescope.
On his website there is a guide on how to do it yourself.
He thought he should print more telescopes and “I just started printing and printing and printing and then I needed help assembling them,” said Michel.
The telescopes are made out of ABS plastic the same plastic car bumpers are made of, Michel said.
The problem is ABS is one of the hardest materials to print with, Michel said. It’s a picky material and needs to be in a thermally controlled environment, he said.
Michel’s phone is filled with pictures of failed prints. He has blogged about his experience and his volunteers building the telescopes. Things have kicked into gear since October.
It takes a couple of weeks for it to be printed and then his volunteers build the telescope. He uses a software program called Fusion 360. There are eight telescopes and the goal is to have 10 in the Blue Door Astronomy Library, which is a renovated shed in Michel’s yard.
The details haven’t been hammered out yet but the idea is for the library to be open on Saturday afternoons. People will have to contact Michel through the website prior to going to the library.
The Exhibition Park Neighbourhood Group has partnered with TenTelescopes to put on a star-gazing event on Saturday.
There will be telescope trivia and other activities at Exhibition Park at 5:30 p.m.
The telescopes vary in height so they can be accessible to children. This past weekend he was testing the telescopes outside and within 10 minutes there was a crowd of children from the neighbourhood.
Michel put out pieces of paper with different size text about 100 metres away from the telescopes and the children used the telescopes to read out the text.
Not every component can be 3D printed. There are pieces of glass placed inside at specific angles and an eye piece “when you put it up to your eye it renders an image so that you can see those faraway things,” said Michel.
Some people love the gear, others love the idea of space and some want to play games. “We want to encourage that,” he said. “We should be doing these things together and just having fun.”
