General Works in Progress T4 2023

 

We have a number of events coming up as we head towards the end of the 2023 School Year.   The most significant event that will be happening in just under two weeks is our 2023 School Gala and Market Day.   We have a student theme of innovation, where as we have documented on this blog and on its pages the students are created products using technology that is available at our school such as the 3D Printers, the Sticker Machine and the Laser Cutter due to the popularity of the posts we have created a specific sub page from the main menu.

The students who have completed the progress (for example shown left) have then been tasked with providing information which is then QR coded on to the back of the MDF.

This has allowed some students to focus on design and creation and others to work on improving and refining their design.  We have been talking to the students about the price that they wish to sell their items for.

For the designs where the students relied on prints and designs which were available as free downloads we encouraged them to look at creating accessories that would work in conjunction with the exisiting print.

Typically these prints are much smaller and more original than the designs.   In the example shown left the student who is printing the Giraffe Plant Holders created a spade to work in conjunction with it.   The plant holder has space for a small succulent.

The design of the spade took several variations (two of which are shown left) in which the student experimented with basic designs from the main interface.  The spades themselves only took fifteen to twenty minutes to print, and included minimal rafting.

For many of the items that the students are looking at selling there is a range of accessories, storage options and display possibilities.   

One such example is the earrings display cases shown on the left.  While this example is a pre-made and designed for our students we still encourage the use of these as they can provide a starting point to students to think about their ideas and how they might use the technology.

The progression of this can be shown in the examples that have already come from the classroom with juniors year three and year four.

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.