3D Printing in the Classroom: Next Project Steps

Background: Over the past few weeks we have engaged a new group of young students in working on basic 3D Printed projects, in many cases for the very first time.  To engage students with the technology the first task for most students is a basic name badge, which can be completed in three basic steps.  For students creating for the first time these can be powerful examples to introduce the technology and the concept of design.  Most of our students are using Tinkercad for their design on the basis that its straightforward and the students (who are nine and ten years old) are able to manipulate and create designs.   The first designs tend to be basic without a very short design brief which the students are able to master nearly always at the first attempt.

Stationary Holder: Prior to removal of the 'rafting'

The next steps is to move students onto more advanced projects.  These examples here are the second runs from this series each of them has an increased print time of six hours to reflect their relative size.

Considerable time is spent with the students prior to printing.   There needs to be an identified purpose and an original or personalised design.   The students are encouraged to think about the scale of what they are completing relative to the design in question.  The print shown left is intended as a stationary storage device.  The student designed it from scratch using a rectangle as the base, and then adding a cylinder and a cube for storage on the top of the box.  The student then met the brief of 'personalisation' by adding his name to the side of the design.   The print time for this design took six hours however the student hadn't considered the overall size of the design relative to what he wanted to accomplish.  Some stationary is able to be stored by the design, however when too many pens or pencils are placed in the design it is unable to cope with the weight.  The student is going to redesign this and triple the size of the design to meet the storage needs of it.   He is shown a little confidence in Mathematics and practical measurement (Tinkercad includes detailed measurement options) and has a desire to complete this project to the correct scale - this is his second ever project with 3D Printed Design.

Left: A second design from another student, with a similar design and scope.  Again the student wanted to create a storage option for stationary to use in the classroom.   The print had a six hour timeframe for completion - again the size of the project was intended to be for storage and the student needed to consider this as a prototype and redesign it relative to completing the brief, something in the region of eighteen to twenty hours if other similar prints are to be considered. 

Left: Student wanted to create a significant name badge or plate.  In this case the student wanted an imposing 'Nascar' themed name plate.   The design featured a six hour print run - a length of 180mm and width of 60mm.   The print was 10mm thick.   Its initial design was as a key ring, hence the hole that was created in the design in the top left handed corner.

For all of the prints on this site and in this series the 'hardward' part of their production remains the same.  We are using an Ultimaker 2+ in the classroom, which is now four years old.   It has the default settings for printing including the use of an 8mm nozzle to speed up the printing as much as possible (it is possible to have a 2mm nozzle but this of course leads to considerably increased print time).  We are using standard PLA (all material and hardware has been sourced in New Zealand from Mindkits)

We will be putting these prints into a specific presentation with tutorial videos explaining the process, including tracking the progression of each of these prints and the development of them from the students perspective.

MindKits 3D Printed Moa Bones Project

This last month has been a fantastic one, as @Mindkits - have had an exciting project for 3D Printing in New Zealand.   There are details of the project here on the Mindkits website.

The project has been detailed with their website and promoted extensively on Twitter.  If you are not following Tim (@mindkits) for an excellent source of information and supplier of 3D Printers.  In New Zealand Tim and his company are the suppliers of Ultimaker Printers (including supplying the printers to our School that we use).

Currently at our school we are awaiting the delivery of our Term One 2018 mail, which is being held during the School holidays.

However, another excellent Twitter user, teacher and educator - Gerard MacManus @gmacmanus
has had the opportunity to go through the processs and has detailed the creation of the 3D Printed Moa Bones.   He has detailed all of his prints and information on his fantastic teaching website, Oneteacherview as well as regulalrly updating the series of prints on Twitter.

This is an excellent project using the printers to create something unique, New Zealand specific and allow the creation of a statement piece.

If you are interested in this project you can follow the links to the following sites online:

• Mindkits Website
• Mindkits Website with details of the Moa Projects
• Tim (Mindkits on Twitter)

The details of the project as carried out by @gmacmanus can be located on his professional teachers blog, located at Oneteacherview here.

More Details on the 3D Printed Students Speakers

Our second group of senior students from Auroa Primary School are just completing their 3D Speaker Build Project. As detailed previously on this site the students here at Auroa Primary School have a series of technology lessons that run from 9am to 2pm on Fridays as part of the technology program.

In New Zealand its typical for students to travel to a School that offers Technology for most schools with small Y7/8 roles its usually a local Intermediate or High School. (Y7/8 is students who are 11 and 12 years old). Previously the Auroa Primary School students had attended the local High School. For the first time in 2014 the School provided students with an internal Technology program, as also previously detailed on this site. Students rotate around technology groups for five weeks.

Students who first attend Woodwork spend the time making the wooden boxes that will house the speakers. The speakers themselves are part of a kit set supplied by a New Zealand Technology Company, Mindkits. The students make the boxes and then spray paint them. When they go into the 3D Printing portion of the Technology Cycle the students are able to design handles, the speaker covers themselves and the feet of the speakers and 3D Print them.  There has been a shift towards more individualised speakers 3D Printed in the second cycle. Students have started personalising the 3D Printer Covers and adding details like their initials into the covers. In the first cycle the students designs were very much modelled on the traditional speakers that would come with a regular stereo system. The print time varies per speaker cover, however on Fast Print settings print times would be in the region of 20-24 hours (each). Nearly every design has featured two covers so of course that would be 40-48 hours in total. For the feet and handles they are being placed onto one Tinkercad Print page and all printed at the same time. For a collective print that looks at printing all six (four feet and two handles on Fast Print settings) we are looking at a print time of again, approximately 20-24 hours, with again some variation coming as a result of the individual student design.