Maker Space Collaboration: Sharing Best Practices and Lessons Learned for Facilities, Equipment and Personnel

USMC innovation labs, along with additive manufacturing (AM) cells, will have a significant impact on future Navy and Marine operations, and these spaces can be important catalysts for learning, collaborating, and experimenting with rapid prototyping and AM. The same groups can also accelerate the adoption of new technologies within the USMC. Providing those spaces with necessary infrastructure, guidance, and support material are crucial to avoid obstacles to technology adoption and maximize the potential for their sustainment and growth. This project expanded our understanding of the US Marine Corps Innovation Labs with a special emphasis on lab infrastructure and service members' capacity to engage with new technologies, conditions, and needs of USMC. The research addressed the topics of innovation mission of the Marine Maker Movement, types of innovation approaches, technologies, and hands-on lab experiences that would be best used for the  Innovation Labs, and the way those experiences should be disseminated.

PI: Emre Gunduz, Co-PIs: Amela Sadagic and Kristen Tsolis

Time: Apr-Sep 2020 

Sponsor: SECNAV & Naval Research Program

Topic Sponsor: USMC Systems Command, Quantico, VA

Navy Additive Manufacturing (AM) Afloat Capability Laydown

In 2014, the Department of the Navy began installing Additive Manufacturing (AM) capabilities aboard surface vessels, and the service is expected to accelerate fleet integration of AM over the next decade. This research aimed to help decision-makers understand how to optimize the deployment of AM resources to the Navy’s Surface Fleet in terms of logistics and operational readiness. Objectives of our project included determining what AM equipment may be best to serve the needs of the Surface Fleet, identifying the order in which Surface units should receive AM capabilities, and identifying an advantageous dispersion plan of AM capabilities across the Surface Fleet to maximize the benefits.

PI: Douglas Van Bossuyt, Co-PI: Amela Sadagic

Time: Oct 2019 - Oct 2020

Sponsor: SECNAV & Naval Research Program

Topic Sponsor: N45

Student capstone project: Nathan Banks, Daniel Ferreira, Jerome Mccauley, Joseph Trinh, and Kenneth Zust: "Navy Additive Manufacturing Afloat Capability Analysis”, https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/64681   

Award: NPS Oustanding Theses, Nathan Banks received Meyer Award for his academic performance