3D Printing – Alexa Azzopardi

During the Fall of 2018, I attended a 3D printing workshop where we made a name tag and I got my first introduction to TinkerCad.

The very first project I ever designed and my introduction to 3D Printing

In October 2018, an Ultimaker 3 3D printer was delivered to our library. I unboxed it at the beginning of November, set it up, and gave myself a crash course in actually using it, and now I teach the 3D printing workshops in my library. Because 3D printing takes a lot of time, I use a PowerPoint presentation to show the various aspects of 3D Printing.

3D-Printing-Demo

Pedagogy

One thing I feel strongly about is teaching students how to design their own projects. Anybody can download a file and print it, but when you have to design something, you have to use higher level critical thinking skills to think about not only how to design the object but how it will print. After a year of teaching people how to design a key tag in TinkerCad, which seems to be a entry level project in many libraries, I created six new projects for students to design – snowflakes, a heart ornament, and a padlock heart pendant, succulent planters, hanging ornaments, and signs.

When students do these projects along with me, they are encouraged to make the project their own, and inevitably, every single project looks different as students get into the creative process.

3D Printed Snowflakes — Starting with geometric shapes in TinkerCad, you combine, group and rotate them making a snowflake.

Two heart padlock pendants and a heart ornament — The emphasis for these projects was taking a solid object in TinkerCad, punching a hole through it and then grouping all of those shapes together.

3D printed succulent planters - two of the planters have faces so that the plant will be the hair. The third planter has a Koala hanging off of the bowl. — In this project, the student has to rotate objects as well as place them on another plane. For the two “monster” planters, the designer has to create a hole where the plant will sit.

A sign that says "The tassel is worth the hassle!" — Starting with a jpg, the student learns how to convert the graduation jpg to a .stl file and import it into TinkerCad. Once students have the basic concepts, they can personalize the sign.

Six Easter egg ornaments — Because the jpg won’t be put on any kind of base, students learn to look for images where everything is connected, how to convert the jpg to a .stl file, import it into TinkerCad and add the loop.