Last week, we had the most amazing experience.
I have been hounding Wendy for a few years about getting us a 3D Printer. I watched enviously as Stephen @stephen_tpk tweeted out what they were doing with theirs and then attended Ben Brittons efellows sharing at Ulearn about his inquiry with 3D Printers. Recently even Steve @steve_katene was tweeting out what they were doing with theirs.
Well, a couple of recent events happened for us to finally receive ours. Wendy our principal was invited by our local rotary group to pitch a reason for us getting a 3D printer for Newmarket School. She invited me along to the meeting and I was so excited I could pop. We spoke passionately about our children and shared some of the recent learning we had been involved in. After we left the session with the group, I returned to school and heard Waveny @wavesbryant sharing that their class really wanted one and had created a pitch to put forward to our Board of Trustees to get one.
Well a few weeks later, Wendy and I were emailed by Brian and blow me down, we were the first chosen school to be receiving a MakerBot Replicator 2 from Newmarket Rotary. They liked what we had to say about how we would use it in the design process and how we worked hard to make our children’s learning visible.
So last week the presentation team arrived at Newmarket School with our MakerBot. Waveney’s class presented their learning around 3 D printing and impressed the visiting group particularly when it was made known that the children were 7 and 8 year olds.
Waves being the creative lady that she is immediately got to work and designed something totally impressive. I went home and youtubed everything, spoke with Myles @NZWaikato on twittter and had a good look around Aurora blog about 3D Printing, dowloaded MakerBot app in iTubes and adapted one of the templates.
Recently I have been in contact with Tim @MindKits, a connection through Myles who said he was willing to help us as we learn. Last night I spoke with Terje @terjepe in Norway who shared what their school have been doing with 3D Printing.
Some other connection we have made during this process has been with Murray Clark, Marketing Manager from Ricoh, and Brian McMath from @NZProdAccel.
I came back to school on the weekend and worked with a past student who happens to be Wendy’s nephew and we created a Batman cookie cutter from something that he drew. He drew a black and white image and we imported it into shapes and pulled it up to create the thickness.
But I will be blowed if I knew how to export the image into Thingyverse and make the image compatible with MakerBot.
Today after our staff meeting, Waveney took me through the process and voila, I am still here waiting for the blasted thing to print off.
So my learning with design , check the measurement. I also think I might have it too close to the plate and might need to chip it off with a credit card kind of implement.
While it printed I recorded a few minutes of the process using Persicope and I had so many people pop on to view. Therefore I know #3Dprinting is very hot at the moment.
The SOLOtaxonomy in me says reflect on the process, so I am doing that now while I wait for my first attempt to print.
The badge took 1hr 57 to print and it was stuck to the plate. I forgot to raise it a little before printing. I think that when I work with the children I would use beginning templates until we understand the process and then have a go at designing from the beginning.
They are really such a magical thing and its very exciting to think how fast they are developing. We are so lucky at Auroa Primary School to have three decent ones which are able to print consistently and well – we’re looking at getting all sorts of things made shortly including have the students building replacement parts to various farm related problems so there is some real learning solutions. As an example when the ignition buttons went on the school BBQ we 3D Printed the replacement parts which was a good problem solving task for the students. Keep it at.
That is so cool Myles, I love the idea of solving problems for farm parts as this can be an ongoing expensive issue for families in your community.
Yes that’s an issue but we also want the students to create and be involved in that process where-by they can solve real issues and problems by using the technology in a practical way, because the learning possibilities with that are just amazing.
I can see heaps of potential for the 3D printer.