Congratulations to Maddie Frank (’20 Electrical Engineering). In January, Frank—along with Kyle Jansson and JD Lang of UWM’s Prototyping Center—was issued a patent for a novel dust collection system for CNC routers.
“UWM provided the opportunity to learn from the talented individuals at the Prototyping Center,” Frank said. “The patent is the result of that wonderful collaboration and learning.”
Frank is an additive manufacturing engineer at Fabric8Labs in San Diego and continues to collaborate with UWM’s Prototype Center.
The patented dust collection system is a step-change in improvement in the ability to capture dust for CNC routers, explains Jansson. It significantly captures debris from the cutting operations while accommodating tools of various lengths, stock thicknesses, and depths of cuts. There is no setup and adjustments are automatic.
As a UWM undergraduate, Frank had worked at the Prototyping Center, where she became an expert on 3D printing. She received third place in the technical competition at the 2018 Additive Manufacturing Users Group conference for creating a dust collection system; at AMUG’s 2019 conference, she won first place in the advanced finishing category for her entry of a 3D printed electric cello, modeled after her own classically made instrument.