Hidden within the confines of Confluence Hall resides a club whose love for creating is about as layered as their 3D prints.
The Mavs 3D Printing Club is designed to give students the space, tools and opportunities they need to create amazing projects.
This club meets every Wednesday from 4-5 p.m. in Confluence Hall room 201.
They host open printing hours four days out of the week, for anyone who is interested in getting their print on:
Monday/Tuesday from 2-4 p.m.
Tuesday/Thursday from 12-1 p.m.
With support from club members and dedicated staff to aid with the process, learning the ropes of 3D printing has never been easier for CMU students.
Originally a hobby club hosted in a back closet in the engineering building, the 3D Printing Club has grown from its humble beginnings. Over the last two semesters, President Calvin Hazard said they found a role as a helping hand for some of the science departments on campus.
“We do a lot of help now with the senior design classes and the first-year engineering project classes. A lot of times, it’s a lot easier to just rapidly prototype something than to, say, like, machine it or buy a part. You can make anything very quickly for very cheap,” Hazard said.
Not only has the 3D Printing Club aided engineering students in designing parts, but they were also responsible for creating detailed cadaver scans for the biology department’s gross anatomy lab during the 2025 spring semester.
While the resources of their 3D printing lab tend to be utilized by the sciences, Hazard said that 3D printing has become a lot more approachable for everyday people, especially in the last couple of years. You no longer need $5,000 and an engineering degree to create something incredible.
“We try to show people that you can model and make something in the span of a couple of hours with a very low cost of material,” Hazard said. “You know, you go downtown to any, like, farmers market now, and there are these stands that sell those two-foot dragons for like $40. You could make the same ones here for about $1.80 in material costs.”
The 3D printing lab is not solely available for members of the club or engineering students working on their projects; anyone with a vision and a can-do attitude are welcome to try their hand at 3D printing.
Whether you’re an artist working with casting and molding for a project, an engineer designing a model part or a student in desperate need of trinkets for a dorm room shelf, the Mavs 3D Printing Club is dedicated to making your creative visions become a reality, one layer at a time.
