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.

3D Pizza

I was wondering what topic I should tackle this week, and I found this picture online.

Why wouldn't I want to learn how to 3D print a delicious pizza?   So I thought about what this particular pizza entails, and I thought of three main parts: crust, cheese, pepperoni, and mushrooms.

The crust remains the most elusive to me because I am still learning how to create perfect curved edges.   How would I take a shallow cylinder and turn it into believable pizza crust?  Well, I Googled "how to curve edges in sketchup."  You can see for yourself.

There is a way of using the Follow Me and the Rotate tool, but lo and behold, there are plugins to round the edges. I used the Artisan toolbar. You have to download the plugin to get the separate tools. I am going to post about that next, in my post called "Ruby Tuesday."

Here is my finished pizza crust. I'll add some mushrooms and cheese later.

Technology Summit

Today was surreal. I got the opportunity to speak to people about 3D printing. What an amazing opportunity for me. 45 minutes really isn't enough time to talk about printing, but I tried! People were interested in knowing more about integrating curriculum with 3D printing, so I will make curriculum a weekly topic.