Pleasant Ridge 3D print company helps shape the future

(FOX 2) – It’s time to make the donuts in Pleasant Ridge at Fisher Unitech.

That’s what’s being whipped up inside the $300,000 machine that’s shaping the future of manufacturing in America.

“We brought it in, we scanned it during the day with our students and overnight we printed it and came back with a replica donut,” said Nick Licari.

With all the imperfections of the real donut that was scanned included the extra sprinkles that were caught on the back of it. But that’s just food for thought – fun.

There are serious implications of the wave of manufacturing moving to the 3D space. If you’ve flown recently, you can thank this type of printing.

“The fuel nozzle on an aircraft,” Licari said. “GE manufacturers a fuel nozzle that used to be 20 components, it’s now down to one component, it reduces a bunch of weight which saves on fuel and is in most engines,”

“In hours you can create products that used to take weeks so it’s truly life-changing,” said Matt Wise.

It is also lifesaving too, according to Wise, who is the CEO of the company.

“You wouldn’t think about 3-D printing in the hospital but you can take a scan of a child who has a cardiac problem and historically what a surgeon would do would be to look at it on his screen,” said Wise. “But now we can actually print that heart and the surgeon can go in and figure out how to do the surgery before that child is on the operating table, saving valuable time for that child and increasing the chances of a successful surgery.”

So this summer in mid-July, Fisher Unitech is opening its doors to high schoolers for a camp. Some young women are already hoping they’ll be here.

“I love CAD and 3-D printing and this camp seems like the perfect opportunity to expand my knowledge,” said one student.

“You could honestly do anything with that, if you have an idea in your head and you want to make it, you can go for it,” Jessica Dillon said. “Start with a little design and you can print it out.”

“I’m personally really excited about bio medical stuff and possibly mass manufactured rocket parts because I want to go into aerospace engineering,” said Reese.