One recent UT graduate and four UT students Kyle Goodrick, Andrew Messing, Aaron Young and Alex Roschli participated in undergraduate research through internships at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For UT students, the project was an opportunity to get real-world learning in what is known as additive manufacturing. James Earle, a recent UT graduate, spearheaded the Local Motors efforts at the MDF, while a handful of UT students played key roles. One of the biggest tasks involved improving the performance of software that allows engineers to see exactly how the printed layers will look before committing to printing them. “We had an initial goal of coming up with software that could generate tool paths faster than existing programs but still allow us to have complete control,” said UT’s Kyle Goodrick, who worked on the overall project with fellow students Andrew Messing, Aaron Young and Alex Roschli. Goodrick and Roschli are electrical engineering majors, while Messing and Young are majoring in computer science. Messing worked on the framework to plan the printing paths, while Goodrick and Young worked on ways to improve their visualization and facilitate easier repair. Once at the show, Roschli and Messing operated the printer. “The car is done, but our work on this project is just beginning,” said Roschli. Young added that he was able to directly use some of the things he learned in class while working on the project, again showing the connection between the work and research at UT and ORNL.