Hey.
I’m Tim Bostelle, the Head of IT for the UW Tacoma Library. This is my blog about 3D printing. I’ll be using this blog to chronicle the successes and failures of the UW Tacoma Library 3D printing program.
The program is simple. You’re a UW Tacoma Student, Staff, or Faculty. You want to print an object for your class. It could be an art piece that you created. It could be something for your iPhone. It could be a 3D model of a mathematical formula. But whatever it is, you want to print it and you can accept that we print in PLA*.
You simply contact me! Send an email to me at tbostell@uw.edu and I will take a look at your project and see what we can do to print it for you. You don’t need any expertise, though it might help to know how to create 3D models.
There is more information about the printer that we are using and the rules of the road on our official web site, here.
For now, here’s piece that I printed for a colleague. It’s a “Tower of Pi” and the model is available on thingiverse. 
This object took 14 hours to print and as you can see, it has little whispy bits between the numbers. This happens because I printed TOO FAST! Or maybe too hot. But I had to print it hot, so that I could print it fast. If I hadn’t printed it that hot and fast, it would have taken days to print.
Anyway, watch this space. More print jobs forthcoming!
*Polylactic acid.