Different Kinds of Printers

So far, we have a Makerbot Replicator 2 and an XYZPrinting DaVinci Model 1.0. I went through my professional development wishing that I could know more about other brands of 3D printers.  It's not a Coke vs. Pepsi world out there.  There is a huge market for 3D printers and I need to learn about all of them. Challenge accepted.  Jennifer Feldman will learn about the different kinds of printers and post about them in the next year.

  However, I bought a book called 3DPrinting: Build Your Own 3D Printer and Print Your Own 3D Objects. By James Floyd Kelly.  I bought this book becausse I wanted to learn how to build my own 3D printer. What a waste of money.  The company he mentions doesn't even offer DIY kits anymore.  Also, who titles their book "build your own" and then only writes one chapter about it!? It should really be called "3D Printing: Briefly Discussing a 3D Printer DIY and Mostly Discussing Software." So I didn't get my money's worth that way.  I did, however, get get the names of two other 3D printing companies and a good chapter on TinkerCAD tutorials. Bah.

Cookie Cutter

One of the participants was very eager to design a cookie cutter based on the logo for the wedding.  Here it is!

Some of my designs

3D Printing Made Easy School Technology Summit 2015

I am on livecubeapp talking about 3D printing!

nycschoolstech.livecubeapp.com

New Boxes

My preferred method of displaying 3D printed materials is through diorama boxes.  It gives teachers a chance to role-play what their students would do in class.  Here are some pictures to give you an example of what teachers would create for their classes. 

Check it out:

Transportation

3D Shapes 

Social Studies/Architecture

Games  

AP Calculus 

Archimedean Solids 

Periodic Table of Elements: Group 1 (to be continued)

 Pop/Video Game Culture

Interactive Tetrahedron Puzzle (to be continued)

Geometric Concepts 

Mapping a Wedding Reception

Native American History

Science Simple Machines

Soma Cubes (Version 1)

Art

History of Gaming

Beach Landscape

Waiting for Printing to End

Michele and I are in semester four of 3D printing overall, semester two of printing for adults.  We are getting better with design, we know how to troubleshoot and anticipate needs, the kids and adults are getting very creative with things they want to print. We even got another printer, the XYZprinting machine. So we have doubled the amount of printing, but the seminal problem still remains.

The problem?

Waiting for the printing to end.

Then printing something else.

Waiting for the printing to end.

Then printing something else.

Waiting for the printing to end.

The trouble with teaching 3D printing as a subject is filling the lag time that students have for printing.  Designing simple pieces that students can use to put together will not take long once students have learned how to use the software.  Waiting for printing is the slow process.