Lesson Ideas for 3D Printing
Kids can get really good at stuff! I was playing with my kids and teaching them TinkerCad. Here's my six year-old and his work creating a snowflake on TinkerCad.
Examples of Projects
Teacher prototype Poppies
Student poppies
Student drawings
Student names - letters apart for loose part play
Student design challenge prototype and feedback cycle "create a font for your client"
Student design challenge "create a font for your client"
Student names with letters attached and added details
Student shape design of Sphero obstacles or targets
Primary Ideas
Working with early primary students with TinkerCad and 3D printing is very adult-heavy. It is recommended that students build experience with chrome books and using the track pad and are aware and intentional about the objects they can create and are trying to create with TinkerCad. This is a wonderful moment to honour that Learning Takes Patience and Time.
It is essential to have teachers create an account as a teacher and then add students ("student 1" "student 2" etc...). The teacher can then edit the student nicknames to make the login more simple (ex. best1, or Students will need the Class Code and their nickname. It is easiest to send a link through Google Classroom, if the teacher has one.
Students can create an object in their account but it cannot be printed until the object has been "sliced" (converted from an STL file {within Tinkercad} to a gcode file). This requires teacher work.
Printing student names
If you are working with a touch-screen laptop, students can "add a scribble" and then touch the screen to write their name. Without the touch-screen laptop students would write their names using "add a scribble" and then using the track pad controls. Note that if students do not take care to attach all the letters of their name (either by having them very close, or having a line under their name) they will wind up with one separate object for each letter of their name (which could be fun).
Student drawings
Students can "add a scribble" and then create their drawing. Note that if students do not take care to attach all the parts of their drawing they will wind up with one separate object for each part.
Storytelling Tokens
Students create a shape as the base of their token and then use the scribble to draw the animal or story character or element of their choice.
Personal Identity Tokens
Students create a strong base layer to support adding elements that represent shapes, drawings and text to identify and highlight things that are important to them.
Intermediate Ideas
Object Design
Students can use the options of inserting and merging objects to be able to create objects of their own creation for various purposes.
Sphero targets or obstacles
Shape creation for testing in an experiment
Lettering and icon/image creation
Building a Yoyo
Designing a game piece (game figure)
Designing a personal identity cube
Creating snowflakes or poppies
Storytelling tokens or cubes
Designing personal medals
Designing school medals
Designing marble mazes
Creating tessalation stencils
Student drawings
Students can "add a scribble" and then use the track pad to create their drawing. Note that if students do not take care to attach all the parts of their drawing they will wind up with separate objects for parts.
Curriculum
This connects to Core Competencies, ADST, Career Education, Arts Education.
More descriptions and assessment tools to come.
Before your class gets going
TinkerCad provides a large number of lessons and resources to support teachers and students in their work with online 3D animation and design. https://www.tinkercad.com/learn/designs/learning
Please set up a free class account and assign student numbers to each student. This will allow you to see (for assessments and printing) and copy student objects and simplify the process of printing a class set of objects.
Here is a quick vide of how to do that: https://youtu.be/NOzez4BSldg
Lesson Flow
Lesson on Videos
Create Storytelling tokens for hands-on storytelling and loose parts play.
Here is a video that you can show in your classroom to be able to guide your students through creating their own.
Grades: 2 and up
Time: 60 minutes
Prep beforehand: Get Tinkercad accounts with class code and anonymous student logins
Followup: All student file prep and printing
This is a good exploration for feedback in helping students design their object when it is vertically-oriented
Check this out before taking 2D to 3D...
Take 2D objects into 3D objects.
Here is a video that you can show in your classroom to be able to guide your students through creating their own.
Create game pieces, tiny trophies or storytelling characters
Grades: 3 and up (stronger tech skills)
Time: 60 minutes
Prep beforehand: Get Tinkercad accounts with class code and anonymous student logins
Followup: All student file prep and printing
Creating a flower or Poppy
Here is a video that you can show in your classroom to be able to guide your students through creating their own.
Grades: 3 and up
Time: 60 minutes
Prep beforehand: Get Tinkercad accounts with class code and anonymous student logins
Followup: All student file prep and printing
Creating a symmetrical holiday ornament
Here is a video that you can show in your classroom to be able to guide your students through creating their own.
Grades: 3 and up
Time: 60 minutes
Prep beforehand: Get Tinkercad accounts with class code and anonymous student logins
Followup: All student file prep and printing
Create an engraved landscape tile
Here is a video that you can show in your classroom to be able to guide your students through creating their own. Your students could fit their tiles together to tell a story. They could create character tiles and event tiles to join this idea.
Grades: 3 and up
Time: 60 minutes
Prep beforehand: Get Tinkercad accounts with class code and anonymous student logins
Followup: All student file prep and printing
Classroom Resources
Printable Reference Documents
For TEACHER reference - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hEj9IKlAnuzFwmzyu27ld71mvk6JlZBI/view?usp=sharing
For STUDENT reference - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZjouZUlAhFNil_j-wcRDW1MOkeSkZM75/view?usp=sharing
Lesson Ideas for your Class - https://sites.google.com/gedu.sd73.bc.ca/kamthompsontechtalk/teach-with-tech/3d-printing/lesson-ideas-for-3d-printing
3D Printer Applications in the Real World! - https://sites.google.com/gedu.sd73.bc.ca/kamthompsontechtalk/teach-with-tech/3d-printing/3d-printer-applications