Integration, meet invention

Jensen Eldenburg stood in the fluorescent light of the Quest Integration showroom and paced patiently, hovering over a curved piece of dark plastic nine inches long.

“I was just looking for a solution,” the North Idaho STEM Charter School teacher in Rathdrum said. “My girlfriend does roller derby, and her truck broke.”

A truck, in this case, is the base of the skate, which supports the shoe and houses the axles. Jensen wanted to give his girlfriend a more durable solution.

Quest Integration’s new program to help inventors in need — a free program it calls “Make-It Thursdays” — provided all the help he needed. The 3D printing center on Moyie Street in Post Falls hosted its inaugural Make It Thursday last week, which opens up the advanced, industrial-quality 3D printers to the public.

“It’s an opportunity for the people of North Idaho to come out with their ideas and designs and see how we can help them,” Quest campaign coordinator Jessica True said. “Most people don’t have too many experiences with 3D printing, so it’s an opportunity for us to show what we can do while, at the same time, helping local inventors or designers — or people who need some sort of solution — find what they need.”

By Thursday mid-afternoon, only two people had walked into Quest’s showroom looking for assistance, both by appointment, but the local staff was undeterred.

“We’re going to try this out,” True said. “We’re going to run this through July and see how it goes, and if it’s something we decide to continue, we’ll look to see how we can maximize its potential for the community.”

“This is something that’s going to start slow,” Quest owner David Minerath said. “But it’s very, very exciting to me — to all of us. When we’ve talked to people about Make It Thursdays and about our company, they ask what we can do. And we always answer, ‘yes.’ There’s no limit to what we can do with this technology.”

As local business leaders took a tour, Eldenburg thought about his students at North Idaho STEM and imagined the possibilities.

“I would love to have something like this at STEM,” he said. “Our CAD program uses a 3D printer, but nothing with this kind of technology. It’s really impressive what they can do here.”

Minerath agreed, citing his company’s work with STEM students during the past 21 years Quest has been in North Idaho.

“Why do people think the way they think?” he asked. “They think a certain way about design because, for example, they first learn about welds. Then they learn about the processes behind welds. Then they practice those processes, and they think that process is the only way. But with what we do with 3D rendering, we can open up those processes and introduce something new. When you take that limitation off, everything becomes possible.

“So to get this in the hands of kids who don’t know any better, they aren’t caught in that cycle yet. So you give this kind of technology to them and watch their minds go to work.”

Minerath and his staff aren’t the only Quest assets who believe in that philosophy. The electronic minds connected to the printers agree, too.

“It follows the notion of topology,” he explained. “You tell the computer what it wants, dimensions, material, strength, et cetera. It will print what you need, but it will learn from that job. Over time, it learns to optimize processes...But soon, it will take it another step after that, through iterative learning. You don’t give it dimensions. Instead, you give it requirements: ‘This piece has to have a certain volume, and it has to be able to resist certain forces, and it has to meet certain physical requirements,’ and that’s it. It will design its own blueprint for what you need.”

Minerath stressed that the iterative learning process is not perfected yet. It’s one example of where the future of 3D printing might soon lead.

For now, Eldenburg is just happy his girlfriend can skate again.

“This sort of technology is incredible,” he said. “Its potential doesn’t really have an end.”

To take part in Make It Thursdays free workshops, call Quest Integration at 208-777-4720.