重口味SM

Using a borrowed 3D printer, U of T prof prints dozens of skulls for students in his virtual class

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Associate Professor Dave Mazierski聽printed and prepared skulls of a聽bat-eared fox聽for the nearly 50 students in his scientific drawing class, a laborious process that took 22 hours聽(photo by Dave Mazierski)

Dave Mazierski spent the holiday break focused on an un-seasonal task: printing 3D models of bat-eared fox skulls.

Mazierski, a vertebrate palaeontologist and associate professor of biomedical communications at the 重口味SM Mississauga, teaches a scientific drawing class. The skulls were needed for his nearly 50 undergraduate students to complete one of the course鈥檚 exercises.

Normally, rows of drawing stations would be set up in one of the biology department鈥檚 laboratories so students can observe and sketch primate skulls.

鈥淟ike a skull-sketching factory,鈥 Mazierski says.

But with teaching forced online by the global COVID-19 pandemic, Mazierski needed to get creative since there wasn鈥檛 a space large enough to accommodate students in safe, physically distanced manner and the primate skulls were too valuable and too fragile to lend out.

So, Mazierski got approval to borrow the program鈥檚 3D printer. He researched online repositories for 3D data for skulls and settled on the bat-eared fox.

鈥淚t鈥檚 got interesting teeth,鈥 he says, holding up a resin model of the skull. 鈥淚t鈥檚 slightly smaller than life, but it鈥檚 large enough that students can see the features we want them to understand, and to draw the various elements of the skull. The size and shape was easy to print as a single object and to clean.鈥

He taps the desk with the 3D print.

鈥淎nd they鈥檙e durable.鈥 

Working in batches of nine, Associate Professor Dave Mazierski says it took 22 hours to print the skulls (photos by Dave Mazierski)

Mazierski printed the models in his newly converted 3D printing studio, formerly his daughter鈥檚 bedroom.

鈥淚t took 22 hours to print them nine at a time (the maximum the desktop 3D printer could produce) and another 20 minutes per skull to remove them from the build platform and clean them,鈥 says Mazierski.

He then packed the models into envelopes for each student, along with grids and a stand that he built from pine boards.

It took 20 minutes to remove each skull from the build platform and clean it (photo by Dave Mazierski)

Many students collected their skulls from lockers in the biology department, but some supplies had to be mailed to students as far away as British Columbia, Ireland and Pakistan.

Laboratory drawings are a standard part of life science studies. In comparative anatomy courses, for example, students are expected to create manuals in which they draw their observations.

鈥淚n vertebrate palaeontology, you have to be able to draw your specimen to report it for publication,鈥 Mazierski says.

Encouraging people to draw is sometimes a way to encourage them to learn in a different way.

鈥淲hile you鈥檝e got to draw the line somewhere, a scientific drawing can鈥檛 be vague or ambivalent. If it鈥檚 going to be accurate and convey information, all those lines must have meaning,鈥 Mazierski says. 鈥淭he act of drawing forces you to understand.鈥

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