Priding itself on sustainability, BeAM, short for “Be a Maker,” introduced a new sustainable 3D printing filament, allPHA, to two of its makerspaces this spring. Sustainable Carolina partnered with BeAM and provided funding to introduce the biodegradable filament into the space.
In 2014, Carolina opened its first makerspace — 400 square feet in Kenan Science Library. Today, campus is home to several makerspaces. Three of these are part of BeAM@CAROLINA, which is open to all students, staff and faculty at Carolina.
In two of these spaces, students can design an object on their computers and then bring it to life through 3D printing. During printing, threadlike material called filament is fed into the printers, then laid down in layers on a plate below. Once all the layers are down, the 3D object is complete. However, not all projects are successes, and because…
