3D Printing School Lore 3: Glow-in-the-dark

 

Recap:

#1 You don't need more than one machine to 3D Print with your students and school! In 2026 we are going to complete all of our projects on one machine.

#2 You don't need to 3D Print all of your 3D Printing projects! In 2025 we started moving away from printing every project and a number of times we used the design process, completed the design but used the Tinkercad AR/VR option as the publishing of the project instead of the physical printing of an object.

There are numerous examples of both of these projects on this blog which you can search for by clicking on the link or using the 'search' box in the top right hand corner of this blog.

#3 - Printing Glow in the Dark Filament is easy! This is something that has evolved over time.   In previous years the printing with specific filament other than regular PLA tended to be something that was avoided.   We sometimes had to store the PLA in air tight containers or clean out the machines once we changed the filament.

When we held our 2025 Market Day we wanted to be able to create a range of interesting prints and challenging for our students - 3D Printing was able to be featured significantly but we wanted to do something a little more interesting and hence the use of 'super' glow-in-the-dark filament.   

Having already ordering various combinations in the past we did so again.   A challenge for you as an educator is to consider what combinations, what differences or what adaptations that you can make by using different filament.   Students have plenty of experience with basic PLA but breaking down the different types available and the different kind of material that can be printed.  To further provide some practical example the video below was created to further illustrate and show the process and examples: