3D Printing

...At Lewis and Clark Elementary

Disclaimer: I am in no way an expert at 3D printing. However, I am willing to learn right along with my kids so they may experience something as cool as 3D printing and possibly find something new they are really good at!

Our MakerSpace has an Ultimaker2 3D printer. We have had it for 2 1/2 years and I am continually improving my skills along with my students.

We primarily use Tinkercad, a free online 3D design program. Students will need accounts. Tinkercad has very robust tutorial options that really lead the kids to learn all that is available and possible with Tinkercad.

The past couple of years we have simply learned Tinkercad and students were able to design a product of choice. I have printed butterflies for necklaces, iphone stands, Mother's Day gifts, baseball team logos and many other designs. That was fine for our first experiences, but as I am learning, I am more comfortable with moving farther and deeper with our learning.

This year, after learning Tinkercad, I asked my fifth grade students to design an ipad stand that could be printed and used within our MakerSpace for our stop-motion animation projects. We started by designing ideas on paper, moved onto creating a Lego prototype, and then put the final design into Tinkercad. Each class then selected the best design in their class and I will select one of the four to print and use. The photos above show the kids' Lego prototypes and designing their idea in Tinkercad.

I have put a lot of thought into how to best use our 3D printer next year. At this point, I don't see us working on a 3D printing "unit" as in the past. I am really trying to integrate my standards and teaching into big questions that will encourage learning through the genius hour philosophy. Genius hour learning has been successful in my library and I want to try to give more choice, more often.

Blog Posts

...At Lillian Schumacher Elementary

This Spring, we added a Dremel 3D40 IdeaBuilder to our MakerSpace. It has been so easy to use and maintain. We purchased the Education package that came with an online Professional Development course and lesson plans to use with students. This was great for me because I had no previous experience with 3D printing.

This year, my 4th and 5th graders used Tinkercad to iterate their 3D designs. After completing the basic lessons from Tinkercad, we began experimenting with the creation of our own designs. While I loved the idea in theory of letting kids free-build, so many students struggled with even coming up with an idea. To help with this struggle, I combined our 3D designing with the game of Chess. I asked students to use the tools of Tinkercad to design their own Chess pieces. Even though this may seem like a simple task, even a piece like a Rook requires kids to use a variety of shapes and structures to help complete the job. In addition, making a piece that would work on an actual chess board requires students to practice with size, scale, and make sure their design is recognizable by all chess players.

I would love for kids to have more opportunities to create and print their own designs; we're still working on what that will look like in our building next year.