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.

The Last Stand - Thank you and Goodbye for 2024

 

The intention was to conclude this blog this year, with it marking ten years since it had started and also reflecting on a change in circumstances.

Due to a change in, a change in circumstances this blog will be continuing next year as well, at least in the short term.

We have finished for the school year in New Zealand and are currently on our school holidays - we will start school again at the end of January 2025.

There will be some project work from our students who are in holiday, but some of the students will continue to produce work, which we will continue to print.   We also have some work that was completed in the lead up to Christmas.

As always if you would like to contact the teacher who supervises the site you can do so via email at myles.webb@gmail.com.    The teacher is still on Twitter/X (just) @NZWaikatp).

Gyro Keychain - Junior Christmas Print

 

We are always looking for designs and prints that we can modify particularly those that are relatively straight forward to print.  We are always looking for adapting a print, particularly if something can lead to it working for a large number of students in a short space of time.

The example shown left is a good illustration of a process that is deceptively simple.   The design is called amongst other things a 'gyro keyring'.    The student in this case needs to alter the lettering at the centre of the design, the basic design of the print can then be spun, leading to a gyro effect.

In this example, while the student has personalised it, the design was created elsewhere, so there is not a full post about it - the other issue is the printing time, which is thirty eight minutes with no rafting or waste PLA.   With this timeframe it is realistic to consider that a a class set could easily be created, and again it would have the potential to be a Christmas print with the initials of another person put at the centre of the design.

Using the Versa Sign Maker

 

For the end of year our students have a group of leavers who graduate from our school before moving on to High School.  As we want as a school to gift them something special, we have had a group of our students, working with a staff member to produce a personalised sweatshirt hoodie for each of the graduating students.

Crucial to this process was the transfers that were crated and printed using the Roland Versa Sign Maker.

The transfers were printed on specific paper and the paper was then pressed onto the material.

The designs were transferred onto the sleeve, the front of the sweatshirt and a detailed label on the back (as shown top left).   The names of the students that were in the group is contained within the numbers to represent the year.

This allowed our school to produce something unique for the students.

Laser Cut Tree - 3D Printed Additions

 

3D Printed Additions to Laser Cut Tree

We detailed on a previous post about using the school laser cutter to produce a range of Christmas Trees with a short space of time for decoration.   Once this was completed the next question was what can we add? What could we make that would work in conjunction with this?

An example is shown left.   The original design is the large Christmas Tree featured on this blog here.  There is a star which was designed very quickly independently by a Y3 student.   The student used a basic design template to produce a star, inserted a letter into the base of the star and inserted a line into the middle so that it could sit on the tree.  None of these elements took more than one minute to produce.

The student is now looking towards the next steps - what else can the students design using Tinkercad to add to the tree.  In the case of the star the entire print was fifteen minutes to print.

The student wanted to look at decoration ideas - one of the ideas was to dye the MDF green and then to use a small set of battery powered set of Christmas lights to illuminate the tree (this would also work if the student had a set of three trees that were in a row.

Christmas Decorations 2024: Ten Years of Student Projects

 

3D Printed Christmas Tree - Junior Development and Evolution

 

Challenge: For a novice designer to be able to successfully produce a Christmas Tree.

Background: We have mentioned this challenge for students in the past, detailing the process by which they select a design and refine and develop it further.

The process shown left started with the smallest design.  It was a basic tree with small decoration.  The initial tree took only thirty minutes to print and measured just over 50mm.   The design base was not centred correctly and there was no option to hand the tree.  Not satisfied with the size of the design the student was able to simple reshape the design and doubled the size.

This increased the printing time significantly which then came in at two hours.   The size of print now measured 130mm from the base to the top, the student also centred the base again and added several other designs to the shape.

The student responsible for this is seven years old.  He is using Tinkercad for the first time this year in the classroom.

The issue of hanging of the tree was not possible so the student wanted to ensure this was possible.  As shown left in the screenshot from the Tinkercad design page with the inserting of a tube at the top to allow the print to be completed with an obvious place to tie.

The student also further attempted to balance the base of the tree.  The concept of the base being wider or larger was not something that he was able to consider.

The print time for this is two and a half hours.   This design was in similar to other with this set of projects and is being included in the slideshow that features ten years of Christmas Themed designs.  You can click on the link here and please feel free to share it with as many others as possible.