Room Seven Auroa Primary School: Week Nine

 

We've approaching the school holidays in New Zealand where we have our mid year break.   As it is a very busy time for our students we have a number of projects that are ongoing at the moment - and we wanted to share and highlight some of these.

In the print featured left the students working on the toy tractor accessories have reworked their original design which was featured on this blog here   It has been considerably resized however now works in conjunction with the tractor perfectly and the students are now looking at ways to refine the design and develop further accessories along the same lines.    

A seperate group of students are experimenting with the process of linking - starting with their names.   They are working with a former student who spent a considerable amount of time last year mastering the art.   You can see example of this students work here and here.   This is the link to the earlier post this month on the subject which you can see by clicking here.

Our students have been working in pairs on the 2026 version of the 'Pencil Sharpener Challenge.

In this challenge students have to take a small physical object (in this case a pencil sharpener, regular size to sharpen a regular HB pencil0 and build a 3D Print to house it.   This involves the students engineering a problem that needs to resolve the location and depth of a print, the exit of the sharpening once its been used and the overall look and composition of an original design.

It has proven to be something of a semi-regular challenge that involves a small outlay but allows the students to be engaged and consider size as well as the challenge of building something around an object.

There are a number of designs that feature on this blog that you can access by clicking on the link on the top right hand corner of this blog, as a search bar will allow you to locate everything tagged with this.

During the holidays we are celebrating our Matariki National Holiday - although we celebrate it slightly different in our region (Puanga).   This project is going to be a significant art project for the remainder of the term.    

Our students have been creating AR/VR images of both the constellation (for Matariki) and the star for Puanga which will be a physical display in our classroom.   You can click on the link to this work here or you can as always use the search bar.

Finally as an Apple Distinguished School we are sending a number of staff to the ANZ Apple Summit in July, please get in touch with our teachers (from Auroa School) if you see them there.

A Million Page Views for this site

 

Over the weekend this site will receive its 1,000,000 page view.  

It has been running as a blog since 2015 with the expressed purpose of sharing ideas and content related to initially 3D Printing, but also a range of tech since then, such as 3D Printers, sticker machines and of course the laser cutter.

You can view our very first post here.

As the students have continued to move through the school we have produced some wonderful projects, ideas and work which it has been fantastic to share with a wider audience from out little school in rural New Zealand, South Taranaki.

As the teacher behind the site I would just like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has contributed directly or indirectly to what we have been able to share from the staff to of course the wonderful students to everyone that has ever visited this page or shared this work.     

We have been promoting this site more this year and I don't think its a coincidence that the page views have increased significantly since the start of the year and are increasing exponentially.  It is exciting to consider where this page will be in another twelve months time.  In the meantime as always thank you so much for your visit and please get in touch (myles.webb@gmail.com/mwebb@auroa.school.nz) if you would like further information regarding any projects or work that we have featured.

Non progredi est regredi.    

3D Printer Pencil Sharpener - Deluxe Edition

 

Challenge: To create an original design that incorporates into the print a physical object with a purpose.

Background: We detailed this projects start earlier this month when we tasked students with the challenge of having a physical sharpener created to work in conjunction with a student engineered 3D Print.    The students for the process were able to work with a partner on the design.   The challenge first stage was the design then the students were to undergo testing to ensure the design was viable, balance and had a purpose.

Some of the challenges that the students came up against were aligning the sharpener correctly into the print, ensuring that they had a suitable 'exit' location for the pencil sharpening once it was used.

Once the inserting mechanisms had been devised the students then spent time working on the other aspects of the design, inserts for pencils, names and shapes.   The students wanted to use a multi coloured PLA for the affect that it would create - this is a PLA which is called 'Cotton Candy'.

Resources Used: iPad and Tinkercad App for the design, Cotton Candy Bambu PLA, Bambu P1S.

Level of Difficulty: Medium/Hard.   This is one of those tasks that appears simple but there are layers and elements to it, particularly when the students start to attempt to have multi entry and exit points and details that need to work in conjunction with each other.

Size: This version of the print measures 50mm across and was 55mm long and 40mm high.   

Cost/Price: This unit as it stands uses 42g of PLA filament to complete the print, including some 12g of rafting (for the lettering and the inside of the box).   This had a price point of $1.07c to complete.

Timeframe: To complete this project the printer took a (now standard) six minutes to warm up and one hour twenty four minutes to complete the print, for a combined total of one and a half hours.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students: There is a gap in the side of the pencil sharpener holder as shown left.   This has been created because the internal storage on the other side of the wall is too close to the side of the print.  It needs to be moved slightly or reduced in size which will correct the error.   The final step is for the students to undergo testing to ensure that the item works as it is intended.  If it does not the students will then need to look at reworking and refining it.

3D Design Puanga Art Piece

 

We've explained the process where we've been identify the group of stars that makes up the Matariki constellation of stars that is celebrated as part of our national holiday.

Regionally there is some variation - in our area where Auroa School is based, Taranaki, we celebrate rather than Matariki, Puanga.    You can view the difference between the two celebrations here.

While it is important to understand Matariki for our students, it is equally important for us to focus on Puanga.   For this we used the knowledge that we had built from the process in the last few days.

For the building of this group of stars we wanted to make sure that Puanga is the most significant from the group as it needs to be the focus.

The Tinkercad App was used with the students iPads (we are an #Apple Distinguished School) to create the group of stars.   We then used a specific feature of the app - the ability of the combination of the app and the iPad to AR/VR the design into another location.  We have extensively used this feature for a number of times which we have featured on this blog - you can search for additional examples by clicking on the link in the search box and inputting 'AR/VR'.

Once this had been completed (such as the student shown left, who projected the image onto the sky) the students then applied a Pic Collage feature.    This allowed considerable manipulation of the image - however as we had described in previously some of this manipulation altered the image to the point that the original design was completely reworked, overshadowed or altered.

One of the challenges for the students was to find innovative and creative locations to then apply a filter.  An example of this process was the use of the school playground in the example left.   We have a swing bridge as part of playground, this image here shows the bridge which then had the AR/VR image projected onto the bridge and the filter applied afterwards.

Puanga was labelled to ensure that it was the most significant star and that it was still visible with the differing background.

Further Developing the Matariki AR/VR Designs

 

We have spent a second day looking at ways to apply Tinkercad as a design tool to a creation that we might consider for showing or illustrating Matariki, the celebration of Maori New Year.

We wanted to explore this event and how we might use our students knowledge of tools that we have used in the classroom this year.    This example shown left is a further exploring of the process.  In this example in additional to having the physical representations of the stars the student has also labelled the stars with their names and attempted to place them in the correct order and relative location.  As noted yesterday the student then AR/VR this design into different locations around the classroom and then the general school.

We have also discovered that Pic Collage has developed its own AR/VR design tools so that students can further enhance their designs by introducing local landmarks such as the examples shown left.   In this instance the student is going to refine their design to ensure that the location of the stars accurately reflects the positions of the stars in the constellations.

We have experimented with a range of locations and also experimented with the AR/VR enhancement - our students have discovered that some of the enhancements overtakes the design - for instance some of the students creations of the constellations were replaced by some of the filters.

In the example shown left this shows how the AR/VR can rework the students design.   The students constellations design, AR/VR into a desk of the classroom is shown right.   When the image was then put through a AR/VR Pic Collage (which is the image shown left) the students design had been completely reworked by the tool changing the composition from one of the student designed with the correct placement into one that does not resemble the students creation.   The student wants to refine their prompts using reference to our location and see if this allows the design that they have created to remain in the correct order.   Likewise references to the local mountain, Taranaki, are producing a version that is not seen from our location.  Finally the idea was to look at some kind of art project - and we were thinking about how this might look.   The students are going to explore the printing of these stars, which while it was not the case initially is now looking at gluing these to a painted background to create a multi-media type piece of art.

Using Tinkercad to create Matariki AR/VR Design

 

In New Zealand we have the Matariki Celebration coming up next month.   At our school we have a number of projects that we want to create for this celebration.   When considering this event we also need to take into account location variations such as ourselves in Taranaki celebration a variation of this with Puanga.

We used Tinkercad to create a students versions of the stars.   We wanted the students to create their own version of this group of stars and then project them into different locations and also look at the different grouping of the stars, the relative size of the stars and the different locations so that the group could be recognised.

This work plane from Tinkercad is a students representation of the group of stars.   This was the students first attempt to create this and is going to undergo some revision and reworking.   This version of the cluster also used a basic star shape before the students had the ability to modify and adapt the design.   A number of the students in the classroom had completed different versions of this group of stars.   One had introduced labelling into the design and had the names of each of the stars in Maori written underneath the picture.

Again the sharing of this project with the students had helped them create the ideas and think about different ways that they could use Tinkercad to show this design and how it then might be created.

Once the design was created the next step was to look at locations where the students could use the Tinkercad App to AR/VR the design onto a blank background.   Once this had been completed the students then took the image that was projected and applied a pic collage filter.

This is the design from one of the students (it is shown above) then projected onto the floor of the classroom.   The shapes that are created by the AR/VR image maker are the carpet from the floor and also the walls and the furniture into the classroom.

The students then attempted to look at a number of locations and different filters which they could apply and attempt to find that best that represents the constellation.

Some filters tend to make the design less dramatic and not stand out - and there are some experimenting to go and we are also looking at different filters, exposures and editing of the photograph to improve the presentation.   There will be a number of additional images for this activity uploaded on the Facebook page, you can locate that by clicking on this link here.

3D Printed Award

 

Challenge: For a student to design something, and modify and print it during their first week of school.

Background; This is a basic foundation task to have a new student excited and involved in the process of 3D Printing.   In this case the student found a design that they wanted to print (the trophy) and then wanted to make an iPad stand which they wanted to personalise by introducing the persons name on the reverse side.

The student working on this task joined the classroom this week, had another student acting as someone to mentor them and this is their first attempts at 3D Printing.

Resources Used: iPad, Tinkercad App, Bambu P1S Printer, regular PLA.    

Level of Difficulty: Low - this is an introductory task (for an eight year old) where the intention is for them to be successful with the process, the design and the outcome.  It is something that should be considered a basic fundamental task.

Size: The trophy measures 50mm across and is 60mm high.  The stand measures 80mm across was 60mm long and was 70mm high.

Cost/Price: The stand used 44g of PLA and the trophy used 14g of PLA to complete.  The price to print both of these items was a combined $1.10c.

Timeframe: Two print the two items side by side took ninety minutes with the standard (default) settings.

What we would do differently/Next steps for the students: The idea behind something like this is to get the student learning the concept, ideas and thinking about what else or where to next.  In the initial design process the student wanted to make an iPad stand however in this instance the stand is too small - it makes a excellent phone stand but to convert it would require resizing and developing.   There was a star that the student wanted to have on the stand under the name, but they didn't attach it to the base and it floated as a result.   This would be something that could be addressed with a revision.