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.

Metric Problems!

I encountered this problem quite heavily in teaching the adult course, but designs made in inches would automatically register in Makerware as millimeters. The problem this year is that designs in Sketchup that students make in inches need to be resized in Makerware. 
It presents a huge problem for pieces that need to be glued together. So I am going to have to actively show students that all designs must be laid out on paper with dimensions in metric form.

Teaching Adults

So we are just about to wrap up our first ever semester of teaching adults how to use the 3d printer.  I have learned a lot about the process from doing it.

First off, adults and children alike are equally as amazed when they print out their first object.

Second, people who post to Thingiverse don't really print out their designs often because the resulting objects come out pretty awful.  I can tell you the exact number of times we've had to reprint because people's Thingiverse designs came out wrong: 4.

Third, adults and children alike are equally into painting their finished designs. Makerbot has put out a Replicator that can print in two colors.  Eventually, 3D printing will evolve into a multi-color process, which will eliminate the entire post-printing paint process. I think that will be a loss to 3D printing, because people will lose out on the experience of artistic rendering. 

Teaching 3D Printing in the Content Area

So today was my first day teaching adults in the Board of Education.  There were a lot of parallels to teaching children and some marked differences. The similarities were that both adults and students were excited when their 3D models printed out.  The major difference was that everyone wanted to keep learning new things immediately and children usually tune out after awhile.