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.

Dec 23 / 9:42pm

Santa came a little early

(download)

Santa came a little early this year, bringing a lovely triple head BfB 3D Touch.
Anyway, It's all set up and working ... Ok so a couple of days early, anyway it's too big for wrapping paper and it had to be tried out and tested (good excuse eh?) And what better way of testing it than to do my first 3 material print, which of course had to be a Christmas themed coaster from the BfB advent calendar of free downloadable stl files.
Of course I shouldn't forget to say a huge thank you to Santa's elves at BfB for all their help and support throughout the year.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.
Dave
 
Filed under  //  hardware   printing  
Dec 14 / 9:16pm

Worlds smallest 3D printer

Ok so we have a RapMan and BfB 3000 printer in school... And I'm really pleased with them and what they can do.... But this is really impressive... The worlds smallest 3D printer!
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/klaus_stadlmann_the_world_s_smallest_3d_printer.html
Wonder how I can get my hands on one of these?
Filed under  //  article   hardware   printing   video  
Dec 13 / 11:59pm

Snowflake 3D print

(download)

This evening I wanted to have a bit of a break after a busy day at school... So I decided to print a snowflake on my Bits from Bytes RapMan 3D printer. I thought that clear PLA might be appropriate for this.... It was! It came out lovely!
If you fancy printing this yourself you can download the .stl file (and other designs too) from the BfB advent calendar of free Christmas themed .stl files http://www.bitsfrombytes.com/content/christmas-2011
Christmas is only a couple of weeks away now so why not give it a go yourself... Or if you have a 3D printer In school why not impress your students with one of these fancy designs.

Filed under  //  education   printing  
Dec 8 / 7:29pm

Colour 3D Printing

File

BfB 3D printers with multiple heads can print in multiple colours! 
Using BfB Axon software and suitable .stl files this is virtually automatic. Quite a few users of these machines have had a go and ok it's not a brand new capability but the technical guys at BfB have taken things a bit further and printed a huge globe .... Great for lessons where D&T meets Geography.
http://www.bitsfrombytes.com/forum/post/how-print-two-colours-new-touch-printer 
Filed under  //  crosscurricular   education   printing   teachingandlearning  
Apr 23 / 9:50am

Bits from Bytes on UK prime time TV

BfB spent some time last week at the Gadget Show Live demonstrating their 3D printers to the public. This event was aimed at letting people know all about 3D printing and how accessible it can be.

A spin off of this was the BfB3000 making an appearance on “This Morning” an ITV morning show in the UK. Here is a short clip from the show.  

A full write up can be found on the BfB Blog http://rapmanv3.blogspot.com/2011/04/seven-days-of-bfb-media-fun-and.html

And in case you missed it here is a clip from the BBC show "Inside Out" earlier in March 2011.  

Filed under  //  Media   Video   printing  
Mar 27 / 5:53pm

Bottle Rockets

Bottle_rockets

Using an A4 sheet of paper a couple of 3D printed parts and an empty fizzy drinks bottle you can make any fly your own rockets!

 

The free resources can be downloaded from the BfB wiki http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Bottle_Rockets

 

Based on an idea from "mindsets" http://www.mutr.co.uk/

 

 

Filed under  //  Resources   Teaching and Learning   printing  
Mar 24 / 7:56pm

Bespoke USB Stick Project

Usb_project

Another Idea for a 3D Printing project suitable for use in Design & Technology (STEM).

Design and make a "Bespoke USB Stick"... a 3D printed case for updating an old flash drive . A project that guides students through from initial design ideas to a 3D printed object. Students will need to be able to use 3D design software.

The project can be downloaded from the BfB Wiki http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Bespoke_USB_Stick

Filed under  //  Education   Resources   Teaching and Learning   printing  
Mar 21 / 5:23pm

Mobile phone stands.. and more

In a slightly crazy way I decided I would try to do a 3D printing project with a whole class (rather than just a few students at a time)… I say crazy because I gave them a fair bit of freedom to choose what they wanted to design…. I pointed them in the direction of the Teaching and Learning resources on the BfB Wiki http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Teaching_Resources and off they went. So, I have students designing for Clip-it, Keep it Safe, and Mobile Mate all at the same time.

Just to show some of the first prints from this group the pictures are of some mobile phone stands (funny how popular this project is). These are surprisingly elegant solutions for 13 year olds. More pictures will follow when we have printed some more projects.

(download)

Filed under  //  Education   printing  
Mar 21 / 5:13pm

Satnav for a bike part 2

You may remember some time ago I posted about a student project to convert an iPhone into a Satnav (see http://rapman-education.posterous.com/convert-an-iphone-into-a-satnav-for-a-bike )

I just thought you might like to see the finished result mounted on a bike…. Not bad for a 15 year old GCSE student

(download)

Filed under  //  Education   printing  
Mar 13 / 3:55pm

Chinese seals - a new Teaching & Learning resource

Seal

This project is for students who can already use 3D design software. The project suggests ways to use BfB 3D printers to produce Chinese seals. These seals are used for printing and they are used in place of signatures in personal documents, office paperwork, contracts, art, or any item requiring acknowledgment or authorship.

 

The project is freely available on the BfB wiki http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Chinese_Seals

 

If you use this resource or any others from the BfB wiki please leave some comments/suggestions on this post or the BfB forum.

 

Filed under  //  Resources   Teaching and Learning   printing