School Holidays NZ - Update: September 2023

It is currently the break between Term Three and Term Four School terms in New Zealand - our students are one week into a two week holiday. We have a major event coming up in November - that is our 2023 Market Day.   This will feature a number of items sold to the local community many of which have been created using some of the specific technology available to our students.  You can see the addition of 'Market Day' tab on our main page.

Our laser cutter is being used in addition to our 3D Printers.   One of the businesses shown left features the MDF Laser Cut planes which have then been spray painted.   

We have also a group of students who during the holidays have been further developing and designing their own 3D Printed animal businesses.   They are roughly divided into two main groups - the first is those who are just exploring their 3D Printing.  These students are using open sourced prints that can then either be modified or 'value added' so that the students can input an aspect of their design.  A number of these businesses and designs have already been featured on this page.

An example of this is the rabbit shown left - the original design is a freely available one from Thingiverse.   The student concerned who is an avid rabbit owner has spray painted the designs (under the appropriate supervision) and then came up with the idea of adding glitter to the designs when the paint had yet dried.   This allowed the glitter to stick to the designs allowing them to sparkle.

This idea came from the students who are working on creating the 'Dragon'.    We have detailed this previously.  We have students who have the eighteen hour printed dragon (online it is described as an 'Ice Dragon' who have worked out how to layer it with the spray painting - who then decided to add glitter to the dragon to give it a dramatic effect when it is tilted slightly.

Again this came from the result of having the students print a design that they wanted to try and use aspects of it to copy another design.    Two students have the two prototypes which they have taken home for the holidays with instructions to play with, manipulate the prints and attempt to think about ways to enhance its presentation.  When the holidays are completed it will be interesting to see how these ideas have developed and what will follow as a result.   The second group of designs are the designs that are created 'from scratch' where the students have followed a process of creating a flexi-animal.   Again examples of this print can be found on this blog.

Virtual Pinball - School ESports 2023 Final

 

This is the link for the broadcast of our Pinball Competition for 2023 being held at school tomorrow morning! Live!

3D Market Day: Student Business

 

We have detailed during the past year and a half on this blog about a student who has been working on unique designs for a small business that she runs as part of her after school and weekend activities.

Wanting to give her an experience to use the technology in the school to operate a realistic business experience she recently attended a local market where she featured four different 3D Printed designs that had also been spray painted and packaged.

She spent the day selling the items and interacting with some of the members of the public.  An important consideration to remember is this student has developed the CAD software to design this items from scratch has linked them herself via Tinkercad and printed them using the school printers.

To make it a realistic business model we have charged the student for a roll of filament (NZ $31.00) for 1kg roll.  She used this to produce the items for sale.    The cost for each of the prints to be manufactured on this basis (there were the four in total, the Kiwi, The Counting Caterpillar, the Dolphin and the Butterfly all at which have featured at times as posts on this blog - was between 0.50c and 0.85 cents to produce.    We did not include a 'hardware' charge in the pricing.  She was able to manufacture twenty four items for sale - and was able to sell nine of them during the course of the market.  The finished product price that she charged was up to $8.00 per print.

This meant that she has paid back the use of the filament, the spray paint which she used to decorate the design, the bags and packaging and make a modest profit.  Crucially moving forward the remaining items which have not been sold (which is nearly half) will be sold in upcoming markets and with the costs already covered the remaining items represent a hundred percent profit.

The most favoured item that was sold was the 'Counting Caterpillar' which went extremely quickly.   The student intends restocking with this item for the next time she is selling items - this is being used in our junior school at present to determine its viability to help teaching and counting of numbers. 

Further Tilt Table Details: Avatar Themed Tilt Table.

Our students have been working on a significant project which we have featured on this blog, being the Marble Maze Tilt Table.   We have previously detailed the process and the details of the 'Star Wars' themed table.   

The second table is the 'Avatar' themed table based on the movie franchise of the same name.    As we have mentioned previously this year long student creation project has been an opportunity for students to combine some of the hardware options that are available to students at our school.

Shown in the photograph on the left is the 'tree' that is the centrepiece from the movie which is a feature of the table.  It was designed by students (using Tinkercad) and then subsequently spray painted.  

Left: The laser cutter has been used to create the MDF pieces that are shown on the left (which have been then spray painted turquoise).    The 3D Printed aspects in addition to the tree include a tilt table (which is in grey) and then the parallel bars which have been printed with the dark green filament.  

The background media which is shown below the different items has been printed on the school sticker machine.   This will allow the 3D Printed items to be mounted onto the base, with the MDF then added to supplement it and guide the ball throughout the maze.

We have previously shown the bridge aspect of the design and the table which is another major feature of this table.  You can view the details about this part of the project here.

All of the parts of the project have been designed by the students (with the exceptions of the bridge as has been detailed in the seperate post).    These have been all measured, designed and investigated by the students with prototypes created first in cardboard or paper and then having test prints completed.  In nearly all cases the test prints have morphed into the final project prints.

The final aspect of the technology that is being used is the sticker machine.  This has been used to produce the media on display on the table.    You can see examples shown in each of the photos with this post, with the characters of the movie/franchise layered onto each other to show details - the sticker machine is extremely important as the surface that the board travels over needs to be robust enough to allow continuous play without there being a worry about the layer of the playing surface suffering damage.

There will be additional posts about this process and product as it nears completion later in the year.  Further construction details are available if you require them as we can put you in contact with the teacher who is responsible for this project.   You can also view more of his incredible work via the Youtube page that houses his projects here.

Virtual Pinball - Auroa Primary School eSports 2023

 

Market Day 2023: 3D Printed 'Spiders Web' Accessory

Challenge: To produce an accessory for a Market Day item.

Background: Our 2023 Market Day is approaching and with the direction of the students been given to use innovation to create something unique and original.   One of the students had decided to use plasticine to create a small range of novelty animals.    

The use of technology was to create a compliment to the design.  The student using Tinkercad for the first time decided to use it to develop a spiders web to be placed with the designs.   The web was designed as a first time print using the main Tinkercad interface.

The student was able to produce a print that they were extremely happy with at the first attempt.  The dimensions of the print were determined by the size of the design.

The print measured 70mm across and was 60mm high.  The print was 10mm thick.   Given the dimensions of the print and the size of the plasticine the dimensions worked extremely well.   

Level of Difficulty: Low - this is the students first attempt at using the 3D Printer to create something using Tinkercad and it is there first attempt.   The issue of whether the web should be symmetrical or not was irrelevant given the placing of the spider in the middle of the web which is intended to be the focal point for the business item.

Size: 70mm across and 60mm high with a width of 10mm.

Timeframe: Three hours - this print works in conjunction with its intended.   Given the size of everything this is a print that complements the design perfectly, any smaller and the spider would dwarf it and it would look too unrealistic.    

What we would do differently/next steps for the students:

Although this is a simplistic idea and process it is once again one of those prints that ticks a lot of boxes.  The design is the first for a student and will hopefully lead to further creations.  The process shows a level of innovation and use of the technology to improve the presentation of a traditional craft item.

There are no intentions to make changes to this design.   

Laser Cut Projects - Ongoing 3D Print Projects 2023

As mentioned previously students at our school have a variety of technology to use with the creation of projects and work.  We have an industrial sized laser cutter available for students to use.   We previously posted about the 2023 Speaker Project, where students were creating a box to house a USB/Blue Tooth Speaker.   Previously we had versions of these, which did include significant 3D Printing dating back to our first use of 3D Printers in 2015.

The student who saw the example of the Laser Cut AT-AT Imperial Star Wars Walker wanted to include an original design for his speaker and decided to use a 'plane' theme and design to house his speaker.

The control panel is just to the left of the cockpit - the speakers themselves site at the back of the plane above the back wheel - with one on each side.   The student has worked independently to produce the shape and the next step is to think about how he might refine or improve his design - can he use the sticker printer machine to produce decals for the wings/plane? Can he use the 3D Printer to create a working propeller for the front of the plane and wheels that work for the base of the plane? The students work on these projects as part of our DPE (Design Production Engineering) in a five week block once a week from 9am to 1pm.    

We have also had students begin the prototyping of next years projects.   The night light shown on the left is the early version of what the students may be looking at.    The frame for the night light is made by using the laser cutter to design it.   A scene is created for the inside of the design - while it is currently the African scene shown students could potentially modify this in a number of ways - by including different scenes or ones that are of particular significance to themselves.    The LED light that is shown to be green is a multi coloured light with a controller and is able to cycle through a range of colours by manually clicking a controller.

The base of the stand features the coiled rope for decoration and a further balanced stand which offers the opportunity to have additional decorations etc.   Again we would be potentially wanting our students to look to develop these projects further to add value, depth and designs to them to ensure that they are pushing themselves with their creation and making.

We are continuing to work on projects and complete work for the upcoming School Market Day.  While we have a classroom of Y3/4 students (who are seven and eight years old) they have all been tasked with creating one original 3D Print that could potentially be marketed and sold to our local community on this evening/day.   

For some of our younger students with their first attempts at 3D Printing while it initially can appear to be challenging once they have made an attempt the results for the students can be fantastic.  In this design on the left the student wanted to make a cow themed key ring or tag and was able to produce the following result on their first attempt.   We are working on a number of these projects in the background and will be posting them closer to the completion time.

Marble Maze/Tilt Table

One of the significant students pieces of project work this year is a high level marble maze - this is being produced with two themes one a 'Star Wars' themed Maze which is subtitled 'Escape from the Death Star'.  The second is produced around the "Avatar Movie' with the theme and game play being produced around the setting of the movie.  

A cabinet is being made for this item so that the two tables will be inter changeable and table to be taken and removed (having one replace the other).   In the example on the left of the Star Wars Maze you can see the centre piece of the 'Death Star' which was produced with the 3D Printer and the various Storm Trooper Helmets that can be seen in the photograph are purple, they are having a light placed within them to light up when the ball rolls past them.  There are additional switches which are placed and designed to cause movement and sound to occur when the ball rolls over them.  The school laser cutter has also been involved in this project and used to produce the material to guide the ball around the maze (in the form of the barriers or sides)

The Avatar themed table (shown left) has two distinct sections with a bridge the connector between the two.  The bridge design was something that ideally a student would have designed however given time constraints and the need for this to be exact and work in conjunction with the table this was an 'elite' level project (one that was completed by a staff member and not the students concerned in this incident.  The dimensions of the table and the construction of the table is where the 3D Printer came into its element as it was ideally suited to produce this piece of the table and ensure that it worked perfectly.

The bridge (shown left) was designed in Tinkercad and printed using a Snapmaker Printer.   The bridge measured 160mm wide and had a length of 200mm for the ramp at it longest part, where the ball begins to exit and make its way down the ramp.   The print was also made to include details such as the screw holes (which can be seen in the photo with which it is being secured to the base).   It goes without saying that producing this piece of 3D Printing to work in conjunction with the table makes it a feature (as does the 'Death Star' part of the main Star Wars table).   

The print took eight hours on a fast print setting.   The print was made 'from scratch' by the adult concerned to create a part that fitted perfectly with the table.   This is a significant ongoing process and project for a group of students at our school and this will be continue to be updated as it moves towards completion before the end of the school year.

This view of the 'Death Star' table shows the various components near their final stage of completion.  It includes an external section formed by tubing on the left hand side, the centre piece being the Death Star itself and the Storm Trooper helmets in purple.   The laser cut sections are clearly visible (the MDF has been spray painted white).  

The students concerned are fans of the original Star Wars movies and have followed an process where they have designed the table based around ideas.

The have created a maze with switches, programmed the switches (using scratch), an extensive design and creation process followed by prototyping and creation.   Extensive game creation and testing with peers and critical thinking about themselves.

Note - the brown section on the front left I am reliably informed represents the planet of Tatooine from Star Wars which is the first part of Episode Four/Star Wars/A New Hope where Luke Skywalker lives and then meets Obi Wan Kenobi.

Ongoing Technology Projects Combining Technology at our School

 

The photograph left shows the Virtual Pinball Machines related to our school.   The smaller unit is the initial machine from four years ago which has a mod with various staff members being the bonus and details about the school (the school bell rings, the Principal calls for students to leave class when a ball is released etc).   The machine on the right is the full sized Pinball Machine with a game specifically designed by the students called 'Motor Cross Madness' this table and work (completed using the 3D Printer, the Laser Cutter etc) was a year long project for the students.    There are various videos about the creation of this machine located here.   The middle table is the the two player pinball machine being used for the school wide virtual Pinball Competition.   With all these machines when they have been completed the students have been involved in a competition with the students competing against each other.  These initially had videos created for the event, although owing to the volume of students involved we have moved in the past few years to live streaming the event via Youtube.  You can watch some of this years competition here.

This years project is involving a marble maze.  The component pieces for this machine such as the ramps have been designed and printed on our Snapmaker 3D Printers following creating on Tinkercad.  In the instance shown on the left the ramp is an important part of the final product to allow the marble to travel over part of the playing field.  

This component piece is considered 'elite' that is it was not a student design it was completed by an adult as it needed to be completed and work perfectly with the main table and component pieces.   This is a year long project for the students involved and there will be further developments and further posts about this project as it nears completion.

Left: This is a process where a student found an accessory online which they wanted to have made and then downloaded the STL file and had the item printed.  The item in question is a toilet which is sized to work in conjunction with a Barbie Toy.

So its a Barbie Toilet.

We've mentioned in the past that at times we have printed one off objects for students with the intention to inspire or to get the students thinking about what they might be able to produce as a result of this.  Some of the best projects ideas have come from this route.

Star Wars Themed Music Player AT-AT

Background: In New Zealand and our School the Year 7 and Year 8 students once a week have a technology day.  A lot of full Primary Schools like ourselves outsource this activity to larger schools in the area.   Our school has run our own internal program for several years.   In it the students are able to complete a variety of rotations one of which involves using the Laser Cutter.

In this instance the students create a box for a blue tooth radio music player.   In this instance the student concerned wanted to personalise the design - the music player needed to have space for the speakers and housing for the main components - the question to the student was if this was laser cut how might the 3D Printer be used to add details to the design.   The student is looking into creating authentic foot plates for the AT-AT, potentially adding details into the head of the AT-AT (such as the guns etc).   The design is able to stand up by itself.

This will be an ongoing project with details to come.

In the activity shown left the students have been working in a small group to complete a 'Marble Maze'.  This has included using the resources at our school such as the Laser Cutter, the sticker machine and the 3D Printer.   This is a major project that requires a specialised group to be working on the project for the duration of a calendar school year.   If you wish to learn any additional information and details about this project you can contact the teacher responsible (which is not me) and I will pass on their contact information and details.

Again the project is using a number of elements from different machines that the students have available.  We have various projects that are constantly evolving and developing and will continue to update them via this blog as appropriate.

2023 Market Day - Y3 and Y4 Student Business Updates

We located the 'Giraffe Plant Holders' online via Thingiverse.   We focussed on this item with the design of the animals via spray paint cans and the student has sourced some potential succulents.   The print time for each of the units was three hours as mentioned - our Market Day is not until November however as we are experiencing anticipated extensive use of the school printers so we are preparing them well in advance.  The focus of the business is going to be put onto the research related to the animal and the student producing the information related to it.  You can see the first attempt at the succulent with the Giraffe on the second row on the right.

The Sea-Turtle business has the student who has made the design and again is now focussing on the next part of the project - selecting colour combinations and arranging to have the items sprayed.  The student has completed the process and created an original and fully designed flexi-animal following the instructions provided by an older student in the school.   The student responsible for this business has followed a similar timeline and pattern to the student featured on this blog that involved the 'flexi-dog' as we approach a School Market Day later in the Year.

We located a number of dragons online - the design shown left was found on Thingiverse and is described as an 'Ice Dragon'.    This is freely available file and design - it is a particularly complex design and not something that our junior students would be able to create.  

Our students had a commercial purchased dragon which was shown previously and this was used as the basis for the design - we attempted to replicate the spray painting, the design and the features of the dragon.   We also were able to increase the size of the design significantly as the design shown left is three times the size of the original that we had as a model.   Again we have junior school students working on this to achieve this project - who are seven and eight years old.