Blog Entry #5: TinkerCAD & 3D Printing

After reading the assigned article Can Historians Help School Reformers (2001), I learned that hands-on learning has been a theory in education since the 1880’s (p. 459). The Manual Arts Reform emphasized learning through hands-on experience in drawing, cooking, crafting wood, etc. (Cuban, 2001, p. 459). This theory is still relevant in modern education, and it is one that often calls for the use of innovative technology. One of the best hands-on design technologies that I used in my classroom this previous year was TinkerCAD. This resource is an online computer program that allows you to create 3D models from scratch using simple geometric shapes. My students used TinkerCAD to design European explorers' ships and Canadian inventions like the Canadarm. It was the next step in this learning process that I was unable to help my students with as TinkerCAD designs are usually 3D printed. So, today in my blog post I will be exploring the process of 3D printing and how it can add to the hands-on learning experience. 

According to Eddie Nemec in his video How to 3D Print your Design (2018), the first step to 3D printing is ensuring that your design is the correct height and width for the printers. Next, you simply need to download your TinkerCAD file and upload it to the MakerBot printing platform (Nemec, 2018). Then, you can print your design from MakerBot, as well as make any adjustments to your design to fit the printer's needs. Another interesting feature of MakerBot is that it can show you how the 3D printer will print your design in layers using the honeycomb process (Nemec, 2018). Who knew that the next step was as simple as download and print? I should also mention that my school has several 3D printers that my students could have used to 3D print their designs, so this is not an inhibitor to the process.  

This previous school year, my students could have used their TinkerCAD designs to print off European explorers' ships. The printing of these ships would have been a great addition to the hands-on learning experience as we created stop motion animation videos on the explorers' journeys. Students could have used the ships that they created as props in their videos, rather than backgrounds for their animations.  

Have you ever used 3D printers in your classroom? If so, what did you have your students design and print?  

Resources 

Cuban, L. (2001). Can historians help school reformers? [Review of the books The Failed Promise of the American High School 1890-1995 by D. L. Angus & J. E. Mirel, Moral Education in America: Schools and the Shaping of Character from Colonial Times to the Present by B. E. McClellan, & Schooled to Work: Vocationalism and the American Curriculum, 1876-1946 by H. M. Kliebard]. Curriculum Inquiry, 31(4), 453–467. doi: 10.1111/1467-873X.t01-1-00207 

Nemec, E. (2018). TinkerCAD step 5: How to 3d print your design. YouTube. Retrieved July 16, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJFmUmrg7i4. 

This is an image of the 3D printers that we have at my school. If you look closely, you can see that a students design is in the beginning process of being printed using the honeycomb method.