3D Printing

Wow - fantastic morning with a small group of 6, 7 and 8 year olds from the Coronet habitat on our very first 3D printing project at Shotover Primary School.

Having completed lots of research and talking to some fantastic educators and 3D printer experts I decided to start small and simple.  I initially had grand ideas about deep and meaningful projects for students, where they solve complicated problems through design thinking.  After a wee while I decided that we all needed to 'tinker' and play first, to develop both skills and confidence first. Including myself, as I am also new to 3D Printing!


So our first projects has started with making personalised key rings!  I created a school account in Tinkercad (linked to my school email).  Within the account I created one of the projects as a class (see image below and the project called "Coronet Group 1").  I was working with a younger group of students and had not used Tinkercad with them so I was unsure how they would handle the programme.  I set up each student with 'design' with a blank key ring.

I then taught the students how to drag and place letters and an object to add or customise / personalise their key ring.

Some of the skills taught were to navigate the:

• editor
• view controls
• handles on objects to resize 
• workplane

We also discussed:

• digital citizenship - passwords, logging off etc.
• how to use the MacBook Air mouse
• what a URL / web address is
• a growth mindset (we need to practice to improve)

Why set up one account for all students to use?

I set one account up as I was working with a group of younger students and I did not want then to create individual accounts.  In Tinkercad's terms of use, under 13s need parent permission to create individual accounts.  

I've looked into Project Ignite which integrates with Tinkercad and 123Circuits (linked to AutoDesk) which creates 'classrooms for teachers and students' and in their words 'Brings engaging ready-to-teach 3D design and electronics projects into classrooms, manage and track student progress. All in one place.'  Teachers can create classrooms and projects but students need they own 'account' to then join the class.  I created a teacher account with Project Ignite, which is linked to my teacher Tinkercad account, not the school account we used for students today, and then I created an account as if I was a student to see how the two linked together.  What was interesting as the teacher I could see ONLY objects that they created from projects I had set not their own individual creations.  I'm keen to use Project Ignite with older students in the future but will need to look into permissions from parents before setting this up.  

Another reason for using the school account for my younger students means that it is easier for us to send these prints to the 3D printing software (we are using CURA software) from the one interface, although I presume that Project Ignite would also deliver this.

What was really cool was I started a test print run of my key ring design before school started (which I'd created in Tinkercad to teach myself the skills so I could teach others).  It was a fabulous 'fluke' as when I brought the students over to the DATS room they could see the printer in action before designing their own.  This made it more exciting and concrete for what they were about to do on the computers!  Not mention the great discussions on how it worked and developing some great analogies to describe how it was printing!

A very simple start to our students' 3D printing journey...yet 8 very excited confident successful 6, 7 and 8 year olds inspired to learn and grow skipped back to class this morning!  I'm looking forward to Monday morning when we set the 3D printers going with their finished designs.