3D Pritned Junior Progressions Summary - Badge

 

The classroom this year consists of students who are a mix of Y3 and Y4 in New Zealand, that is students who are seven and eight years old.   The eight year olds have the experience of being in the classroom for a calendar year and have used Tinkercad to design and make the 3D Projects that are featured on this blog.

Blending in the new designs is something like this design shown left, which has a basic shape and lettering.   Twenty minutes to print, student designed it independently (we have four 3D printers as school so I do need to be mindful of other classrooms and what is being designed and printed.

An extension task following on for this is something like adding additional features and working out how to insert a hole into the design to create a way to tie the design to an object.  The students typically experiment with getting the size correct, typically starting with something simple as shown left, which was developed by a new student this year for his second actual print.   Dimensions were worked on by the student, including measuring it up.

Furthermore we then look at adding an object into the design - there is a full range of objects that can easily be added from the main design page, in this case it is a rugby ball.   Students experiment with the depth of the objects and lettering, typically when they start both tend to be extending out from the design to a point that they compromise the design itself.  In this progression shown left the student has the lettering coming out 3mm from the design and the ball a similar length.  This print measured 100mm long was 60mm high and was 5mm thick with the default settings on the print this took just over three hours.

Another second tier design is shown left, this by a second year student, who has developed his skills during the past twelve months.   As an eight year old in under ten minutes the student is able to design a label from scratch, attach a name to it and two additional images to go with it.

The student was able to present this design for printing, without any input from the teacher, based on his design experience last year.

The final challenge at this stage with the more experienced students and the students who are designing for the first time but excelling was to look at inverting the writing so instead of it featuring on the outside of the design it instead was on the inside but sunk into the design.

The students designing this kind of item can be reassured that the item has a significant shelf life.  The earliest prints from ten years ago, when we first started printing are still in existence as has been evidenced by our outside print.

We have also used a box of inspiration featuring some old projects and while students are waiting for their initial designs to print, we have utilised Tinkercads AR/VR feature to image their creations.

You can see ten years of examples on this site by using the search bar on the right hand side as we have tagged 'badges' 'labels' and 'exemplars'.

Starting 2025 With a New Classroom

 

The school year in New Zealand has started for 2025 (for the benefit of those of you who are visiting this page from overseas we run from February to December each year).

We have a classroom of Y3/4 students the Y4 students had the experience of using Tinkercad and the 3D Printers last year, the younger students who are seven years old are typically designing for the first time.

As it has been the last few years we are using Tinkercad to design and maintain our students creativity.   This blog has been running for over ten years of 3D Printing for classroom designs - we cannot say enough of the practicality of using Tinkercad for our students CAD designs.   Apart from the face its a free program, it is a web based design site continues to evolve and develop.   The classroom management is exceptional,  and the students are able to design easily - this years new students have been mentored by the older students who have quickly picked up how to design and create.

We are a 1:1 iPad School - we have pushed the Tinkercad app out to all our school iPads as the app allows for the students to VR/AR their designs anywhere.

Each year we start with basic designs such as those shown left.  We will not be repeating all of our designs again this year as posts - you can look at the 'search' bar on the right hand side and look at 'badges' which we have created for the past ten years or click at some of our exemplars such as the one located here.

Our students are independently creating these designs which we will be printing a range of, typically we would expect them to come in at under two hours on our Snapmaker Printers.   Although for the first time in several years we are going to experiment by purchasing additional printers.

The new tool from the main Tinkercad interface has already proven to be very popular with the students, allowing precision cutting to take place from larger objects and also to add additional shapes to a creation.   We have also started exploring the changes to the main picture interface.

This site is being maintained by an active classroom teacher - that is someone who regularly teachers students and encourages creativity.  If you want to get in the contact with the teacher you can email me at:

myles.webb@gmail.com

I also am on several of the social media sites and platforms chiefly as @NZWaikato.   I am more than happy to explain the process or creation of particular projects further including some of the other projects that I have been involved in.

We also have a major school event this year - we are again holding a School Market Day when the local community comes into the school to looks at the products that the students create.   We have a specific tab from the main menu from last years event including detailed videos of the event.  You can click on that here.