Students use 3-D printing to create sea lion feeding buckets for ... - Abccolumbia.com
COLUMBIA, SC (WOLO) — Zookeepers at Riverbanks Zoo's Sea Lion Landing say their feeding buckets kept breaking, until students at Richland Two Institute of Innovation stepped in to help create new ones.
According to 3-D Printing and Design Teacher Nicolas Jones, one of the students at the institute happened to be neighbors with a zookeeper — who explained to the student that their feeding buckets kept breaking from the weight of the fish.
Jones also says the company that made the buckets had gone out of business during the pandemic. So the students decided to help.
According to Jones, the main goal of the class is to allow students to manufacture their own designs — and a sea lion feeding bucket was an excellent class project.
"We kind of fleshed it out and realized we probably could do it. So we spent the year kind of designing and redesigning and manufacturing and testing, and we ended up with a bucket and a clip that would work for the design, and we were able to manufacture a bunch and get them out to the zoo here," says Jones.
Sophomore Kendrick Phillips says he worked on perfecting the clip that hooks the bucket to the zookeeper's waist.
"One problem that we really had was the clip on the bucket, because it needed to be thin enough that it would not hinder the keeper's movement but not thick enough that it would cut into their hip or anything. But we also had a problem where the clip was chafing at the belt, so we had to try to design a clip that was a little concave and also was thin enough, but strong enough to hold up that bucket with the amount of fish and water in it," says Phillips.
Matt Perron, Public Relations Manager for Riverbanks Zoo, says its important for the zookeepers to give their full attention to the sea lions, and not worry about breaking buckets.
"Maintaining eye contact is very important. Being able to have their hands free, I mean you saw some of the hand signals they're giving. Where it's almost like high fives and getting the seals to do handstands and stuff, so it's very key that they're able to have their full attention on the animal. They don't ever want to look away or lose focus for any amount of time," says Perron.
Perron says other zoos who used the same buckets were having similar issues and have reached out to Riverbanks about the new buckets which hold eight to 10 pounds of fish.
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