Junior Classroom Projects: To Consider

 

Tinkercad as an iPad App has many advantages and while we use it primarily for 3D Design for 3D Printing it also has a number of other outstanding features.

From an educational perspective the class/school design management is robust, versatile and incredibly easy for the students to use.   We have a strong farming community at our school and students are forever looking to build different images and shapes.   Some of the 3D Designs by their nature are too large or complicated to realistically make into a 3D Print - such as this hay shed, tractor and bale combination shown above left.   The student has had a lot of joy in its creation, being able to see how it goes with motion, and look and work on its composition.

Thanks to the Tinkercad APP there is also the opportunity to AR/VR this scene at a number of locations.

We also are always looking at ways and opportunities to excite students about the creation process.   In the print shown left the student purchased from a local store and was given the red dragon.   The student concerned recognised it as a 3D Print and asked permission from the teacher to try and track down the original to see if she could find it and we as students could then print our own original copy out.     It took some time to locate, based around if it was a chess piece etc but was located as a 'Cali-Dragon' on Thingiverse and was subsequently downloaded from there.

The print was relatively short in terms of duration and while the student didn't create anything unique as they were merely printing a pre-made design the intention as always is to inspire and have the students thinking 'what could I make next?' 'what could I do differently or how could I change this?'