Amberly Elementary After School Program (Portage, MI)

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jmpreuss
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Amberly Elementary After School Program (Portage, MI)

Post by jmpreuss »

Assuming the snow stops today will be the first session of a 3d print/design class at my daughter's elementary school. It will be for six weeks on Wednesdays for one hour after school. Since I don't have much time with the students this will be more of an introduction. Today I will be showing many examples of my prints and explaining how 3D printers work (with my nicely portable Orion). Later in the course I will be introducing Tinkercad. I don't have much control over the computer environment so a web based design program was pretty much my only option.

As this class goes on I will give updates on my experience.
PTMNBN="Printer that must not be named" - a heavily upgraded Replicator 2
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Eaglezsoar
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Re: Amberly Elementary After School Program (Portage, MI)

Post by Eaglezsoar »

jmpreuss wrote:Assuming the snow stops today will be the first session of a 3d print/design class at my daughter's elementary school. It will be for six weeks on Wednesdays for one hour after school. Since I don't have much time with the students this will be more of an introduction. Today I will be showing many examples of my prints and explaining how 3D printers work (with my nicely portable Orion). Later in the course I will be introducing Tinkercad. I don't have much control over the computer environment so a web based design program was pretty much my only option.

As this class goes on I will give updates on my experience.
As I read about what you are doing, I wonder how different myself and the world would be if what you are teaching now was available 50 years ago.
Although the children of today are going to face some really tough challenges, they are growing up in a fantastically technical age and I can't help but
wonder how that will change the students, our country and our world. I won't be around to see it in 50 years but I certainly hope that all this technology
can be used for peace rather than destruction and the students of today use the technology they learn for the benefit of all mankind.
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Re: Amberly Elementary After School Program (Portage, MI)

Post by jjjohnson »

I am was influenced to get into a career in education because of my high school technology education teacher, he inspired me because he taught me how cool and fun this stuff is. I must admit that what I thought education would be is far different than what it is. I have fought hard for seven years to bring back programs and curriculum that enable students to experience a variety of different career skills that made positive impacts on me. Getting students interested and excited about something that can make an impact in their lives, but many of these types of programs seem to be disappearing due to budgets or the perceived lack of importance. If more educators choose to take the tougher road and battler for the resources and curriculum that will benefit students, what is the potential for the future? Great if you ask me!

I agree completely with Eaglezsoar, Our students are growing up in a very technical age.

How will this play out in the long run? We MUST prepare our students for more than a standardized test. They need skills, inspiration, discipline, and more. Lets face it, not every students is bound for a four year college education. Does that equate to failure for them or the education system? Some say yes, imagine though, a students who gets inspired during a class involving 3D modeling, 3D printing, drafting, design, machining, welding, etc and turns that into a career through either a technical degree (2 year) or apprenticeship. Lets excite and inspire our students! Why not start with 3D Printing!
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jmpreuss
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Re: Amberly Elementary After School Program (Portage, MI)

Post by jmpreuss »

My first class on Wednesday went pretty well considering. The schedule for this program has been messed up because of snow days and this weeks class unfortunately didn't include any 5th graders because they were at camp. I will need to redo the intro for them this upcoming week.

A few things I picked up in week one. Doing this immediately after school (which I don't have a choice) is a bit challenging because these kids have been sitting in class all day and have a bit of pent up energy. I think I am going to have to be a bit more structured than I originally planned on or I'm going to have a crowd control issue, especially with the 3rd graders (wish I could have limited it to just 4th and 5th). The kids did like looking at my collection of things I have printed and were fascinated by how the printer worked. I think it is a good group, though glad I didn't expand the class size beyond the 12 I set it at.

This upcoming week I will have to split the class between the 5th and the rest. I think I am going to set up a thingiverse scavenger hunt activity so they can get an idea on what can be done with 3d printers, and allow them to pick something to print (I had promised participants in the class would get some objects to keep). The following week I was going to start with tinkercad but now I'm thinking more of a create an object by hand (thinking like a medallion that I could scan and print) would help learning how to design before going straight to the computer.
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Re: Amberly Elementary After School Program (Portage, MI)

Post by jjjohnson »

A quick and easy print for beginners is the SeeMe Dog tag: http://repables.com/r/181/ I designed and put it in the curriculum as the first activity thinking about a print that would take 15 minutes or less to print and provide something for the user to have and show off.

Curriculum Activity 1: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xSm ... sp=sharing

If the students where ID's on lanyards at school they can add this piece to it to show everyone what they made. Its also an easy piece to redraw up in a program like tinkercad and put the students initials on instead of the SeeMeCNC blinky eyes. I have the .ipt file I created in Autodesk Inventor if anyone would like that to modify and print.
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Re: Amberly Elementary After School Program (Portage, MI)

Post by jmpreuss »

Some belated updates.

The second week of class I had the student peruse Thingiverse to get ideas of things that can be designed and printed and allowed them to pick something for me to print for them (I also had to go over all the first week stuff for my 5th graders who were at camp the week before). For the third week I decided to have them design something that just required pencil and paper, no 3D modelling skills required. I printed out sheets of paper with a circle and told the students that with a pencil they could virtually carve out a design. I then scanned these drawings in and turned them into prints. Interesting output.
2014-03-06 16.29.30.jpg
Considering they only had one shot at this I think they turned out pretty well.

The schedule has been a disaster. I had to cancel class the last 2 weeks (once for parent teacher conferences, the other because I was called for jury duty of all things). I am having 2 weeks of make ups but that will still cut my class short 1 week from the original six. I will do tinkercad these next couple weeks, which means I will have to somehow get their final prints to them after the class is over.
PTMNBN="Printer that must not be named" - a heavily upgraded Replicator 2
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