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.

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Apr 4 / 5:31pm

Developing 3D printing

I keep hearing that a new revolution is taking place... A 3D printing revolution. But what does this mean in an educational context?
This document explores some of my thoughts on this issue.

Click here to download:
Developing_3D_printing.pdf (225 KB)
(download)

 

Filed under  //  Teaching and Learning   printing  
Mar 23 / 5:37pm

3D printed pencil sharpener... The final part

(download)

If you browse back through this blog you will be able to see how one of my students has attempted to design an improved pencil sharpener.

His designs started out as a desktop model and by looking back at his specification for the design decided that something more portable and easier to use for small hands would be a better route to follow.

His next design was really quite innovative and involved fold out cross pieces that formed a handle for better leverage. It also incorporated a standard metal pencil sharpener to do the main job of sharpening... However he was still not entirely satisfied. It was now close to becoming a marketable product but having to rely on another manufacturers sharpener wasn't really a good idea, and the pointy ends of the fold out handles wasn't very aesthetically pleasing... So...

The final iteration of his design addressed these issues... And matches the specification beautifully as you can see in the photos.

I firmly believe that without being able to do 3D printing for his prototypes and adopting an iterative design process this student would still be looking at a chunky desktop product and would never have developed his design in such detail.

Filed under  //  dt   education   printing   student   teachingandlearning  
Feb 19 / 5:49pm

Blogging and Tweeting

Clevedondt1

As many of you who regularly read by blog (I'm still amazed how many hits I get for my blog posts) will know I am the Head of D&T at Clevedon School in the UK.... And some of you will have seen that I tweet too!! But you might not know where to find me in the "twittersphere" or "blogosphere" (are those really words?) ... here goes with an update of my contacts

This blog: http://rapman-education.posterous.com/ (specifically about 3D printing in education, but with a few bits of news about other interesting developments thrown in)

My twitter name: @davewhite60 (usually about 3D printing in education, but other stuff sneaks in occasionally)

My school D&T department blog: http://www.clevedonschool.org.uk/blogs/products/ (not just 3D printing but also news of students, projects and developments in my school department)

My school D&T department twitter name: @clevedondt (just for tweeting about my department)

So, why not visit the blogs and maybe follow on twitter.... It will be interesting to see what develops.

Filed under  //  dt   media   teachingandlearning  
Jan 22 / 1:44pm

Bespoke USB sticks

(download)

 The students in my year 9 CAD/CAM integrated project groups have all come together with different amounts of experience, some having done work with the 3D program Creo/elements pro and others having done none at all. And very few have experience of actually designing for 3D printing. So we did a fairly quick introductory project to help get everyone to the same skills level.

This introductory project was to design and 3D print a custom case for a USB stick. As you can see from the photos there are some very interesting designs. Hopefully some more photos will be posted when the students have printed their design.... And then on to the main project!

 I have posted some Free to download teaching and learning resources for this project on the Bits from Bytes wiki http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Bespoke_USB_Stick

Filed under  //  education   printing   resources   student   teachingandlearning  
Jan 16 / 10:34pm

Iterative designing for 3D printing

(download)

 One of my GCSE students (15 years old) decided that for his final project he would design a fitting to hold an iPhone on his bike handlebars. I think he must have seen one produced by another student last year and featured in an earlier post on my blog!

So he went away and started to produce some ideas using Google Sketchup I would have much preferred him to have used a proper CAD program for the reasons you will probably see later. Anyway, he finished his design, exported it to .stl format, created the gcode with BfB Axon and printed the first parts. As you can see they were far too big and chunky... This was a real surprise to him as in Sketchup the design looked ok. So, back to the drawing board! ... I wonder if he would have realised his mistakes if he had used Creo Elements/pro or Autodesk Inventor?

His next designs look far more promising, the size is better and somehow it all fits together... So what will the next version look like? ... Well, this is where the power of 3D printing lies. The simplicity, cost effectiveness and relative speed allowed this student to start down the road of an iterative design process. For this him it would have been almost impossible for him to test and visualise what his product would turn out like without printing his first draft design. The jump he made in improving his design would probably not have been possible if he had to have invested heavily in skill acquisition, time and materials for CNC milling. 

Filed under  //  Student   dt   education   printing   teachingandlearning  
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  
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 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  
Mar 3 / 9:05pm

Scheme of Learning

On the BfB Wiki I have published a resource for use by teachers to help with projects for designing and making- using the BfB projects on the wiki. The Scheme of Learning is designed around a 20 hour project (allowing time for flexibility)

 

Note. The SOL is "generic" most of the project ideas on the wiki can be used as the context for the designing and making activity. For a first time the best projects to use are http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/MP3_Design_Project ; http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Clip_It_%26_Keep_it_Safe ; http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Mobile_Mate ; or more ideas can be found in http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Additional_Design_%26_Technology_Projects .

 

For Teachers in the UK the project is linked to....

* Personal Learning and Thinking Skills (PLTS)

* UK National Curriculum for D&T "Levels"

Teachers outside the UK may find these useful anyway!

 

A pupil workbook/portfolio linked to the Scheme of Learning can be found here http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Project_Booklet  

 

The Scheme of Learning can be found here http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Scheme_of_Learning

 This is just a screenshot

Sol

Loads of other Teaching and learning resources and ideas can be found here http://wiki.bitsfrombytes.com/index.php/Main_Page#Education

 

I hope this helps teachers who are always “busy people” with their lesson planning… and of course helping students to use BfB 3D printers in their lessons.

 

Dave

 

Filed under  //  Education   Resources   Teaching and Learning