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.

Aug 18 / 9:32pm

3D Printing for Microcontrollers

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One of the things I have been intending to do this year is to look at updating the 'systems and control' work that we do with students in year 8. We have been using the "Picaxe" micro controllers but with the developments that have been going on I decided that we might need to look at Arduino and Raspberry Pi. Both of these systems cost considerably more than Picaxe so before doing some experimenting with students I thought that it might be good to put the boards in some kind of container.

So I found a lovely printable Raspberry Pi case on Thingiverse and printed it in nice shiny red PLA. As you can see in the pictures it came out very well.... But what about Arduino? I couldn't find anything suitable so I fired up my PC and using Creo2 designed my own, again in lovely red PLA.

Well, so far so good... Now to get down to learning how to program!

 

Filed under  //  education   hardware   printing  
Aug 7 / 4:37pm

Claystruder 2

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Back in 2011 I had the pleasure of meeting up with Dries Verbruggen aka "Unfold" when he visited Bits from Bytes HQ. I had a great time with Unfold showing me his Claystruder for 3D printing with clay, mashed potato and chocolate paste. Using his claystruder and a RapMan machine he produced some lovely clay pots that could probably not be produced by any other pottery/ceramics technique.

Anyway, Unfold has been at it again... And has updated his claystruder. I'm now just wondering what wonderful ceramic designs he will come up with next?

The design for his claystruder has been uploaded to thingiverse where you can find more details, or why not visit his blog here http://unfoldfab.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/road-to-better-paste-extrusion-episode.html

And to see some more of his fantastic ceramic creations check them out here http://unfoldfab.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/print-print-print.html

Note. Photos are from Unfold's blog/website http://www.unfold.be by Kristof Vrancken

Filed under  //  hardware   printing  
Jul 30 / 10:55am

iPad tripod... Revisited

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I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with my iPad. I want to plug things in and control things but I just won't let me do it... But some of the camera apps are superb, however many like the slow motion or time lapse really need a steady/fixed iPad. Hence my desire to fix my iPad onto a camera tripod.

As you might realise I have tinkered around with this before and produced some trial designs, but none of them were very professional or even finished. So here is my latest iteration and it's pretty close to being successful.

My previous designs were trying to be as universal as possible in its fixing to the tripod by using the standard camera fixing screw. The iPad is however pretty big and heavy and using just this single fixing didn't fill me with confidence so I made the decision to use the quick release mount on the pan and tilt head of the tripod.

Of course the "wedges" under the top plate create a huge overhang but this was simply overcome by printing the plate and wedge parts as separate items to be slotted together. Although I have a triple head printer I didn't want to start printing with support material, in that way the design could be easily made on a single head machine.

So I now have a secure mount for my iPad perhaps now I can play a bit more with some of the camera apps and have the peace of mind that it's not going to fall off the tripod. And maybe I'll love my iPad a bit more!

 

Update... Just added a video of the tripod mount to YouTube .... Photos taken with iPad, video created with iMovie, music composed and performed with GarageBand... Perhaps I do like my iPad quite a lot really:)

Component parts can be downloaded from thingiverse iPad tripod mount by davewhite60 - Thingiverse

 

Filed under  //  printing  
Jul 23 / 9:16pm

3D printing ... In a roundabout way

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Check out this blog post by Dughall McCormick (twitter @dughall ) http://dughall.com/?p=276

Dughall is an E-learning consultant for the local authority in Kirklees UK. He has been involved in a 3D printing project in primary schools. The students designed and made 3D models of (Olympic) stadiums. It's obvious from the pictures in the blog that everyone involved had a brilliant day... And the quality of the designing by the year 4 students (8/9 year olds) is fantastic.

Filed under  //  Primary   printing   student  
May 31 / 9:54pm

D&T erupts into Geography

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It was one of those days today where a "magic moment" happened in school. Isn't it just wonderful when this happens. One of my students who helped out with a presentation about 3D printing for a visitor earlier this week (see the earlier post "To baldly go") came to see me about his Geography homework... Really strange as I'm a D&T teacher! It turned out that he had to do a project homework about how a volcano works.

This student had started to make connections in his mind. He now knows a bit about 3D printing and he did some independent research and stumbled across the teaching and learning resources I published on the BfB wiki http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Geography_-_Mount_Saint_Helens_Volcano ... So he downloaded the files and asked if we could print them... How could I refuse?

... And his Geography teacher was really pleased to receive models of Mt St Helen's before and after it erupted.

Filed under  //  crosscurricular   printing   student   teachingandlearning  
May 30 / 8:28pm

What's the catch? 3D scan for 3D print.

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There is no catch.... Just feeble attempt at a "catchy" title for this post about Autodesk 123D Catch for pc and iPad.

 

Earlier in the week the 123D Catch app for the Ipad became available from the Apple app store in the UK... So I promptly downloaded and installed it. It was a parent/teacher meeting last night so I had to wait... Grrrr.

But tonight I had my first attempt... A pretty successfully too as you can see in the photos. And even more impressive is that it really is the very first attempt!

 

I did have a go at uploading pictures using the PC program but somehow never really got to grips with it. But the iPad app is a real dream, ok the app takes the photos and uploads them and then shows you a wonderful 3D representation of your object but you still need the PC version to download the mesh file in .obj format.

 

Anyway having downloaded the mesh you do meed to do a bit of editing. The mesh is not "watertight" and has a huge hole in the base. You will need a program to do this, I used netfabb basic but meshlab is another alternative. I found that slicing off the bottom (which looks very like a pizza on my scan) saved a lot of manipulation and triangle editing.

 

Once the mesh was ready (I only downloaded the medium quality by the way) I converted the file into gcode for my 3D Touch and printed a scaled down version as I was too impatient to wait for a big print.

 

Oh, and what is the object I scanned? It's an antique plaster model of a hand borrowed from our Art Department... Thanks guys! Im not entirely certain but I think the hand is holding a borax cone. These cones used to be used by jewellers and the like, they ground the cone in a wet ceramic bowl to make a paste to use as flux for silver soldering. I used to do a bit of silversmithing so I just love this connection!

 

So, my next thoughts are... What do I scan next? How can I use this in school? And.....

 

Filed under  //  3dscanning   dt   education   printing   software  
May 30 / 8:23pm

To baldly go... (3D Printing)

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If you take a look at the pictures in this post you will see what I mean... And I'm not being rude to Tim, I unashamedly "borrowed" some of the title for this post from him... And as you will will also see we are an almost matching pair!

Anyway, to get to the point... On Tuesday (29th May 2012) we were visited in school by Tim Rylands who was on a fact finding mission about 3D printing in schools for his keynote speech at the West of England ICT conference at UWE (University of the West of England) on 4th of July 2012. And where better to go than the D&T department at Clevedon School.

During Tim's visit we were able to get a small group of year 9 (13 years old) students to lead him through the whole process from 3D CAD design through creating the g-code that drives our Bits from Bytes machines to actually printing their products. For a group of students who have only had about 10 hours of experience of Creo Parametric and a couple of hours on 3D printing they were absolutely fantastic. They gave a very clear and concise explanation and some very perceptive insights into the use of this technology in education.... Couldn't have done better myself!

We also managed to squeeze in a bit of time explaining how we are looking at using iPads to create 3D virtual objects for 3D printing and also for laser cutting... There are some wonderful new apps available now, that do 3D scanning so "watch this space", we could be one of the first schools doing this!

And finally...

So, who is Tim? ...With over 25 years of classroom experience, in the UK, and beyond, Tim is now much in demand for training days, conferences and seminars around the world, presenting the results of his work in an inspiring, practical and often humorous way.

โ€œTim Rylands is an extremely gifted and inspirational teacher, with a love of the creative potential of technology and an excellent rapport with pupilsโ€.

www.timrylands.com/

 

 

Filed under  //  dt   education   printing   student   teachingandlearning  
May 19 / 12:04pm

Unplugged... iPad stand

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Over the last week I have been introducing students to some iPad apps for 3D printing and laser cutting. To do this effectively I have been using our digital projector and a VGA to Apple dock connector cable (unfortunately I don't have access to apple tv) ... But it became more and more frustrating when the iPad moved on the table and the dock connector kept falling out... Note to self, I must get a longer VGA cable! But in the meantime I need another solution. So that's why I've 3D printed a stand for my iPad. Maybe that will give me a more stable platform to work from and help prevent the cable from being pulled out... I'll give it a try next week!

Being in a bit of a rush to get things done I didn't have time to design the stand myself so after a browse on Thingiverse I found this one ... So thanks to "Hobie" whose design can be found at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing23225

 

Filed under  //  dt   hardware   printing  
May 8 / 7:07pm

3D Scanning for 3D Printing..Free!

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Some time ago Autodesk released 123D Catch, a free (beta), online service for creating 3D objects using just an ordinary digital camera. I couldn't resist giving it a go! But I didn't have great success, probably due to my impatience... I just didn't take enough photos... You need to upload about 50 to 70 pictures!

Well it looks like the guys at Bits from Bytes (3D Systems) have been doing a bit of experimenting and judging by the above photo they have been more successful than me!

The BfB guys have also been looking at using a kinect camera to produce 3D objects using the free ReconstructMe software.. Wish I had one of those kinects to play with.

Anyway, if you are interested to give it a go yourself just have a look on the BfB website (just click the "support" button at the top of the homepage and select "technical resources", scroll down to the bottom of the page for the links to the information).

Of course being "free" this is ideal for experimenting with in schools, I really must give it a go again. If you try it yourself or with your students why not let us know how you get on.

Filed under  //  3D Scanning   printing  
May 1 / 12:44pm

#3Dprinting video at Clevedon School

A few weeks ago a film crew from UWE (University of the West of England) came into school to make a "Breakfast TV" style program about 3D printing... Of course, where better to go than Clevedon School to interview Mr White and one of the GCSE Product Design students.

The program not only shows 3D Printing at Clevedon School but also some of the research taking place at UWE.... Can you believe that they are actually printing 3D objects with ice cream!

Anyway, here is the video clip... Watch out for Tyler and Mr White about half way through the video.... Enjoy!

And thanks to the guys at UWE for letting me use this clip.

Filed under  //  dt   education   printing   teachingandlearning   video