After three years, building two additional printers, incurring continual  major highly technical and practical issues, College still hasn’t met goal of building one small facility with its four machines

Yavapai Community College’s CTEC faculty has faced apparently unforeseeable and massive technical and practical challenges after the College and its Governing Board  was convinced by someone to  purchase two 3D cement printers three years ago, January 2020. The price tag on the two 3D printers was a half million dollars.  

Enormous amounts of CTEC faculty time and energy plus expenditures of an unannounced amount of revenue have been spent on trying to turn the project around and solve technical and practical problems — in addition to building two new printers while sidelining the original purchases.

These revelations were shared by CTEC Dean John Morgan during the District Governing Board meeting held February 21, 2023. Morgan explained to the Board that after realizing the first two machines it purchased were not suitable for the College’s intended use, it proceeded to construct two more machines that it felt would meet its  purpose. And began the long road to solve the technical issues associated with using them.

According to Morgan, after the 2020 purchase, the Community College faced a variety of  challenges including a need to build its own machines, a cement mix shortage and many extraordinarily difficult  technical issues.

One can get gain a glimpse into the time and effort dedicated to the project when the Community College recently recognized Matt Mintzmeyer, Director of Aerospace Science/3D Printing and Manufacturing, for his tireless work on its behalf.

The College in recognizing Mintzmeyer said, in part:

He has spent 100’s of hours outside of the workday getting the machines to function properly, while also battling COVID. Without this commitment, we would not be able to move forward with 3D house printing due to the complexity of the operation.

Director Mintzmeyer has been successful at putting together a good team to keep going with the ongoing learning curve involved in 3D house printing. His easy going and “can do” attitude have been very noticeable. He has communicated well with the 3D team, and has them coming in to run test prints on a regular basis. As we inch closer to building a house, those skills will continue to be needed, and he will have to keep that team motivated in his role as Director.

Matt has spent many a late night working on improvements to the 3D printing lab at CTEC, as well as mastering the 3D house printing machine as part of the construction program. He has reached out to industry concerning directions we need to go in 3D printing, and has gleaned some good ideas that he has helped incorporate into the classroom. At a time when frustrations have been high, Matt has continued to work through problems pertaining to 3D house printing.

It can be noted that the College has refused a request from the Blog to provide estimates of the cost of building the two new machines or the amount of any grants that were used to construct any of the additional equipment or pay for all the unanticipated staff time needed to try and save the project.

Below is a copy of the decision by the Governing Board made at a hurriedly called Executive session to alter the 2019-2020 budget so the half million could be spent on the two 3D printers. The College still has them but they have been sidelined in favor of the two the College built on its own.

Here is a photo shown to the Governing Board of the original two 3D printers purchased for a half million. Dean Morgan said the manufacturer stood by its warranties on the machines. Although able to function, they are apparently serving no purpose at the present time.

Here is a photo of the two 3D printers that the College built at its own cost after it concluded the two it had purchased were not adequate to perform the tasks it thought they could.