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.