A design for 3D printable glasses frames meant to serve as a short-term replacement after a person’s normal frames have broken. While the initial objective has been fulfilled, this project has grown larger than we could have imagined in the beginning. This project started as a small group final project in my Engineering Design course.
We began by brainstorming possible projects and decided on this one. Once we settled on a project we embraced the rapid prototyping and iterative style of design and quickly began to design, print, and refine our ideas. We divided the work among the three of us, each in charge of different aspects of the project.
Specifically, I was in charge of the front frame (nose piece and extension to the legs), and I was also in charge of combining all parts of our design together. Our group used Creo Parametric 3.0 to model our design and a MakerBot 3D printer to print prototypes and the end product.
Shortly after the class ended, we were approached by our professor and asked if we had thought about applications in poverty-stricken areas as printing glasses, even just the frames, could vastly reduce the cost and help provide affordable eye-wear to impoverished peoples. Once we realized the ramifications of our project, we redoubled our efforts even though we had gotten a grade and the class had ended. Since then, we have worked at refining our design, looking into patent opportunities, and reaching out to larger organizations for help. You can read more about this project on our website.