Undergraduate student’s winning project: Embedding 3D Security Features in 3D-Printed Parts for Enhanced Product Authentication
18 Jun, 2021

The 2021 Professor Charles K. Kao Student Creativity Awards

Project: Teleoperated MRI-Compatible Needle Insertion Robot

Awardee: LEUNG Chiu Man

Award: (Undergraduate Individual) First Runner-up

Supervisor: Prof. SONG Xu

Project Short Description:

My project aims to investigate the effectiveness and feasibility of embedding 3D security features, in forms of 3D QR code, in 3D-printed parts by taking advantages of the additive nature of the 3D printing technology.  An algorithm was developed to automate the whole process, which includes importing the STL file of the object to be printed, generating a 2D QR code that is unique to each product, transforming the 2D QR code to a 3D model, embedding the 3D model of the QR code to the imported STL file and finally exporting the model as a STL file that are suitable to be 3D printed.

Sharing:

To me, participating in the Professor Charles K. Kao Student Creativity Awards is very challenging as I expected to compete with a lot of creative projects that are very impactful in changing how people would live their daily life.  Not only did I have to work hard on my project so I could come up with more quality and creative ideas, but I also had to pay effort on my presentation in Mandarin.  The impromptu Q and A Session was also valuable to my project as the judges raised questions that I had not thought about before, their critical questions allowed me to view my project from a different angle and guided me to the ways of improvement.