Additive Manufacturing

Anna is a PhD student working at Loughborough University, investigating the use of in situ heat treatments to improve the metallurgy of tool steel components produced by additive manufacturing. She has recently won second place prize in the IOM3 Young Person’s Lecture Competition national final, and in 2021 was awarded Postgraduate Female Engineer of the Year by the Loughborough University Women’s Engineering Society.

Alongside her research, Anna is passionate about increasing awareness of engineering careers among young people, in particular engaging girls in STEM activities and education programmes

In her video, Anna Tholen discusses the role of Additive Manufacturing and it’s real world applications. Additive Manufacturing can be used for a whole host of inventions, functions and developments in the engineering sector.

In this talk, Anna considers the past of Additive Manufacturing, the journey it has taken to get to where the sector is now, Anna’s current research and the research and experiences she has had working at Renishaw and Loughborough University.

Anna ends her video by looking to the future of the industry and suggests some of the incredible opportunities posed by the development of this area of engineering.

Classroom Activity

These videos can be used in many different ways to suit your students.

Below we have posed a number of questions that you could ask your students to consider. We have also suggested a whole classroom style activity. 

Activity:

Additive Manufacting could be instrumental in developing engineering that changes the future.

Play this video for your students and then pose the question: Additive Manufacturing at home; a positive or negative outcome?

Split students up into two groups; one arguing why this is a positive move and one arguing for why this may be a negative move. 

Get students to perform a debate in the classroom.

This activity could be supplimented with additional research tasks.

Questions:

• Why is Additive Manufacturing important to the developement of the engineering industry?
• Can you think of other ways additive manufacturing may inspire future developments in the sector? Are there any really out there ideas for how this type of engineering could change the world.
• What route could you take to get into this type of engineering? What kind of qualifications would you need to do a role like this?