rapman-education's posterous

rapman-education's posterous

Dave White  //  A place for educators, teachers, lecturers and students to find "stuff" about RapMan,BfB3000 and BfB 3DTouch printers... The unofficial Blog by Dave White, Advanced Skills Teacher and Head of D&T in Clevedon School UK.

Feb 3 / 8:14pm

Dave White.... an academic???

I had to smile a little …..

 

Whilst googling for some information about 3D printing I stumbled upon a link to Appropedia. This is a site for collaborative approaches to sustainability, poverty reduction and international development. On the page…  “Open source 3D printer literature review”  from the Queen's University Applied Sustainability Research Group” (near the bottom) in the “papers” section was a reference to this… “Dave, White, “Rapman and Open Source Projects.” Retrieved June 18, 2010, from http://www.bitsfrombytes.com/wiki/images/8/85/RapMan_and_open_source.pdf (*)”

 

… I’ve never (to my knowledge) had a “paper” published before! Does that make me an academic??? J

 

Dave

Feb 2 / 8:14pm

Crossing boundaries.

After the normal school day was over I had an extra lesson to teach today… only this was no ordinary lesson. As you may have probably gathered I usually teach Design & Technology but tonight I was crossing boundaries and venturing into the world of Geography.

(download)

This “Masterclass” was a real new experience for me, not only was I tackling Geography but the students were visiting from another school. Ben Cotton from St Katherine’s School near Bristol UK brought three of his A ‘Level students and the head of the D&T Department to my school in Clevedon to have a look at our 3D printers and some of the teaching and learning resources that I have developed and made freely available on the Bits from Bytes wiki.

Whilst munching on M&M’s and Twizzlers,( kindly sent to us by 3D Systems Ltd)  we ran through the process of downloading satellite data, scaling and converting it for printing 3D terrain models on our RapMan and BfB3000 printers. And of course we printed a small version of the “after eruption” model of Mt St Helens. The students were fascinated by the process and I also learned a lot about pyroclastic flow, lateral blasts and also that volcanoes come in different varieties with strange names like strato, compound (or composite?) and shield…. Not bad eh? Especially when the last time I did Geography was as a pupil over 30 years ago.

We then moved on to look at a case study of a project to design a hydroelectric dam in northern Italy. This case study by Marco Giubelli of Sigma Designs used a RapMan printer to help the public visualise the environmental changes that would happen after the building of a new bigger dam.

And as if that wasn’t enough we managed to cram in a brief look at other Geography related projects and resources… wind turbines and architecture!

The students were fantastic and a real credit to Ben and St Katherine’s School. They were genuinely interested in the crossover between D&T and geography by using a RapMan and BfB3000 printer. They gave a “thumbs up” for the projects and resources and have shown an interest in following up this evening’s work with another session after their exams in the summer… I’m already looking forwards to this possibility.

If you are interested in doing this type of activity the resources that I produced can be downloaded from the BfB wiki.  http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Teaching_Resources

Dave

 

Filed under  //  Cross Curricular   Education  
Jan 27 / 10:28pm

Students Recreate Eruption Effects with RapMan

Mercury1

I really don’t think I have to say too much about this article, just have a read J

North Somerset Mercury Jan 27 2011

 

Filed under  //  Education   Media   News   Teaching and Learning  
Jan 20 / 6:26pm

Times Education Supplement

TES – The Times Education Supplement is published weekly for teachers and educators and has a circulation of over 50K copies in the UK.

On 14/1/2011 in the “Noticeboard” section the following brief article appeared about the use of RapMan in my school to print 3D terrain models – a cross curricular project with D&T and Geography.

It has already generated interest and as a result other schools have e-mailed to find out more details.

Free resources for this project can be found here http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Geography_-_3D_Terrain and here http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Geography_-_Mount_Saint_Helens_Volcano

Tes_recon

Filed under  //  Education   Media   News   Teaching and Learning  
Jan 18 / 6:38pm

Guardian Classroom Innovation Award - Results

Just a quick post to let you know the result of the Guardian Classroom Innovation Award competition….. we didn’t win L

Ok, so we didn’t win.... but we were not unsuccessful! Lots of people, teachers, students etc. got to hear about 3D printing as a new technology that is “accessible” to students, schools and colleges.  Clevedon School and BfB were "in the public eye", online, at the BETT Show and on BBC radio….  and to me, that makes it all the more worthwhile.

 

I'm still really pleased that we made it through to the final 3 in a UK wide competition... maybe next year.... ????

 

If you missed out on all of this then have a look here for the results and to see the videos from the shortlisted entries. http://www.guardian.co.uk/classroom-innovation/classroom-innovation-awards-sh...

 

And finally, a HUGE thank-you to everyone who voted for us either by e-mail or at the BETT show.

 

Dave

 

Filed under  //  Media   News   Teaching and Learning  
Jan 15 / 10:21am

BBC Radio Interview

(download)

 

At about 9.00am this morning (15/1/2011)I was interviewed live on air by the BBC about Clevedon Schools entry in the Guardian newspaper’s competition- the Classroom Innovation Award.

9.00am on a Saturday morning is far too early … I missed my “duvet time”…. and as it was going out live I do have to admit that I was a little nervous, I hope it didn’t show too much.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy listening to it, and I’m still keeping my fingers crossed waiting to hear how we got on in the competition.

 

The "podcast" above is an extract from the BBC Radio Bristol " Saturday Breakfast" http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00czj95/Saturday_Breakfast_15_01_2011/ (skip to about 2:48:45)

 

Dave

Filed under  //  Education   Media  
Jan 14 / 6:22pm

Safe support material removal.... that really works!!!

As some of you will possibly remember I upgraded my RapMan to a double extruder some time ago and did some prints with ABS for the object and PLA for support material. I did my first prints like this during last summer and I used Caustic Soda or Lye (NaOH) to remove the support really quite successfully. A couple of months later I tried again and with a dangerously strong mix of NaOH even after 2 days the support was still intact…. I suspected that it was because of the colder weather. I was also very concerned that this was far too risky to do in school, we needed to find an alternative approach!

So I talked with the guys at BfB and thinking around the problem it started to become obvious why the PLA is biodegradable…. It’s to do with 2 things- HEAT and MOISTURE. i.e. the things that make it degrade when buried in a rubbish tip or compost heap.

The guys at BfB then started experimenting and passed on their ideas for me to try out too. And here is the good news…

 PLA SUPPORT MATERIAL CAN BE REMOVED JUST WITH HOT WATER !!!

The process is somewhat slower than with NaOH but considerably safer.

As a result of this testing it looks like all you need to do is immerse the part and support into a container of hot water at 80 degrees Celsius for about 36 to 48 hours… after this time the PLA starts to go brittle and crumbly – you can easily and safely crush it (almost to a powder) in your fingers.

The problem is how to maintain a container of water at 80 degrees Celsius for this amount of time… The guys at BfB allowed me to borrow an ultrasonic cleaner tank for a few days and this seemed to work very well… I only used the heater not the ultrasonic part which may or may not help (not tested yet)… I have a feeling BfB might consider supplying these tanks sometime.

So for support materials removal…

Method 1… SAFER…. But slower… Hot water at 80 degrees Celsius for 36 – 48 hours

Method 2… RISKY… But faster… Hot, NaOH (time depends on strength and temperature)

(method 2 is made a bit safer by using a proper tank but don’t forget NaOH is very corrosive and you should carefully assess the risks to yourself and others before you consider trying it)

For those of you who have not come across ultrasonic tanks there is a photo attached (other styles and makes are available) In school why not see if your science department has one of these that you can use.

Tank
Essential to have…

Thermostatic control, A lid to prevent evaporation, Safety cut-out (as liquids and electricity don’t tend to work well together), Correct voltage machine, A timer is probably useful, Ultrasonic may or may not help… not tested by me.

Filed under  //  Health and Safety   printing  
Jan 13 / 6:40pm

Education Ambassadors at Euromold - Part 2

Hi,

In an earlier post I blogged about students from Clevedon School (UK) visiting the Euromold 2010 exhibition in Frankfurt (Germany). This has now been reported in our local newspaper and I thought you might like to see.

I would just like to say again a huge "thank-you" to the guys from Bits from Bytes and 3D Systems for giving us this opportunity.

Dave

Ns_times_13_1_2011

Filed under  //  Conference   Media  
Jan 10 / 5:18pm

Guardian newspaper's Classroom Innovation Award .... UPDATE !!!!

UPDATE !!!!!

I have just heard earlier today that our entry to the Guardian newspaper's Classroom Innovation Award has been shortlisted. (for details see my blog entry 2 below this one)

The top 3 presentations are now to be shown on the Asus stand  at the BETT 2011 show in Olympia, London, UK. Visitors to the stand can then vote for the best idea.

So if you are going to the BETT show please drop into the Asus stand Hall/Stand:  K29and vote for us... J

Don't forget you will be voting for Clevedon School’s 3D Printing video in the secondary school category J

Dave

... Oh, and in all my excitement I almost forgot.... A HUGE thank-you  to everyone who e-mailed their vote for us

 

Filed under  //  Education   Media   News  
Jan 9 / 3:22pm

Students to hold a volcano in their hands

In a few weeks’ time I’m about to run a pilot “workshop session” with a group of teachers and students from the D&T and Geography departments of my own and a neighbouring school.  All very exciting and a different approach to the “Mt St Helens” volcano project that I posted on the BfB Wiki http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Geography_-_Mount_Saint_Helens_Volcano . More about this later J

 

Anyway, I started to get together all the resources I need for the project and realised that even after  several months since I published the project I had never printed out a BIG “before” and after “model”. So, that was this weekend’s project!

 

For the technically minded, the details of how to convert satellite data to a .stl file is in the resource listed above. The print was made using white opaque PLA. The g-code was produced in BfB Axon using a modified version of Andrew’s new profiles (z=0.5mm, fill =0%, solid layers=3, shells = 4, Temp 195, all other settings as standard in “BfB2 z0.50 PLA Fast”)…. Build time about 2.5 - 3 hours each.

 

Anyway, I’m sure you will agree that they look pretty good… even if they do look a bit like icebergs.

(download)

Filed under  //  Software   Teaching and Learning   printing