The engineering department offered people the chance to develop their numeracy skills using its state-the-art 3D printing machines

Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor's engineering team has been providing a free 3D printing course for adults at the Hafan Engineering campus at Pwllheli.

The course, in association with Grŵp Llandrillo Menai’s Multiply team, taught members of the public to use state-the-art additive manufacturing machines normally only available to full-time students.

Multiply is aimed at helping adults improve their confidence with numbers in everyday life.

The 3D printing course used numeracy in the design process to measure and calculate dimensional requirements when creating models, as well as adjusting speeds and infill, and scaling up models to achieve the desired model size and quality.

Running for eight hours over four weeks, the course was designed to build confidence in producing 3D printed models.

The sessions for beginners covered how to download pre-made models, and using ‘Benchy’ - a benchmark print used to verify the printing capability of any 3D printer.

There were also tutorials on how to reduce print times for efficiency and quality improvements, and how people can generate models of their own.

Emlyn Evans, engineering lecturer, said: “The 3D printing course has been very popular and well attended. It has been running over many sites across the Grŵp with places being taken up quickly.

“It has been a great opportunity for us to showcase our resources, which are normally only accessible to students studying on the BTEC Level 3 courses we run at Pwllheli and Dolgellau.

“The free sessions offered by Multiply have given us a great opportunity to share our passion for engineering and additive manufacturing as part of this new programme.”

The course at Pwllheli will run on January 6, 13, 20 and 27, 5pm-7pm. Dates for Dolgellau are to be confirmed.