The makerspace was approached by a representative of the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) to create 3d models of some of the Maya objects, dated to approximately 600-900 CE, that they have in their collection. Some of their sculptures are old and have an unknown creator so creating 3d prints of them allows others to engage with them more and an accurate print gives insight into how it was made.

3d Printing Sculptures with WCMA

On the left is a hollow rattle and on the right is a corn pot.

Examples of 3d printing failures

When printing the corn pot a lot of issues were encountered. When printing a large model a lot of layer shifting in the print would happening and the front left leg would have problems adhering to the print bed. A variety of different solutions were trim including different kinds of bed adhesion methods (skirt, brim raft), decreasing the print speed and changing the size of the model.

Eventually the final model was created at 50% print speed, around 80% of the original size and a 3.0mm brim to help with bed adhesion.