This spring, with the support of Kreg Hanning and the Lesley Tech Team here at KLO, we have been learning about the 3D printer as well as how to set it up and maintain it. Additionally have had a fantastic opportunity to run an after school class to pilot some 3D printing curriculum. For our first lesson we chose to use the book The Big Orange Splot for inspiration. First we read students the story and had a discussion about dream houses and what makes a house a house. We talked about how the houses in the story were imaginative and related to the character's interests; then we made a list of the things a house needs such as windows, doors and a roof. Students then did some sketching on paper before jumping into 3D designing. For their 3D modeling they used a program called Tinkercad.
In the Tinkercad software the students were encouraged to use the basic 3D shapes such as spheres, cylinders, cubes and triangular prisms to build with. They had to use skills such as rotating, scaling and aligning to build successful models. Once their designs were finished the teaching team ran them through the necessary programs to get them printer ready and then they were printed!
Here are some photos of the models fresh from the 3D printer with their printing supports still attached.
After removing the supports, students will be using acrylic paint to finish their wonderful models.
