“This may have helped significantly in giving arguments to Congress for increasing research funding for earth sciences,” said Michalis Faloutsos, UCR Director of Entrepreneurship. The model was featured at a congressional meeting on in Huntington Beach, where the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology (including Congress members Mark Takano, Dana Rohrabacher and Jerry McNerney) met to decide the fate of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program ( NEHRP). “In nine months, we have brought the model to the general public, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting – the biggest geophysical conference in the world, the Long Night of Arts and Innovation, several outreach activities inside and outside UCR, and even a house committee meeting with legislators!” he said. Kyriakopoulos and his 3D-printed model have had quite a busy year. “The Creat’R Lab is a great example of a well-organized space with an open doors policy, so easy to approach and so supportive.” “Michele was so helpful,” Kyriakopoulos said. “This technology can teach people new concepts, partially by inspiring them to ask questions that they had never thought of before.” “It involved a number of techniques and considerations we had never delved into before, and the educational application was so obvious,” she said. When he brought his idea to Michele Potter, Creat’R Lab’s 3D printing specialist, she was enthusiastic.

“In order to do that better, it helps to be able to put our computer-based work into physical form.”

“It can be challenging for geophysicists to talk to everyday people about what we do,” Kyriakopoulos explained. He believed that a tactile model would make his work more engaging, interactive and accessible to different types of audiences – from academic peers to elementary schoolchildren, government officials, and the visually impaired. It had opened its doors in Orbach Library only three months prior.Īs a Researcher in UC Riverside’s Department of Earth Sciences, Kyriakopoulos typically works with numerical models on computer screens, but he wanted to make a 3D-model of California’s major earthquake faults to use as an outreach tool. Christodoulos Kyriakopoulos had a wild idea in July 2017, but he didn’t know whether UCR had the resources he needed to bring his vision to life – until he found out about the Creat’R Lab.

Inside the earth 3d model maker