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.

Jan 18 / 3:09pm

I've moved!

I have unfortunately had to move my blog to another platform.

But the good news is that I can now be found here... http://3dprintineducation.wordpress.com/

Like the new name, eh?

Why have I moved? Nothing sinister, it's simply because I use the Blogsy iPad app to do most of my blogging and since early December 2012 Blogsy has not been able to access my blog through the Posterous API.

My apologies to those who regularly visit my blog (and there are quite a few of you according to the analytics).
If you are a regular visitor please update any favourites or bookmarks to my new address, and if you are a new visitor please add this link to keep up to date with the news http://3dprintineducation.wordpress.com/

Filed under  //  Teaching and Learning   dt   education   media   printing  
Nov 22 / 7:58pm

3D printing at university

(download)

Some wonderful new 3D printing developments have been happening over the last few weeks that I couldn't omit from my blog...

Early in November Ian Major from 3DS / Bits from Bytes presented a 3D Touch printer to the University of Bristol for use by their students. See the attached photos.

On the BfB forum the university also posted the following .... "The 3DTouch in the atrium of the Merchant Venturer's Building in the University of Bristol has been available to the students for just over a week now and has been in almost continuous use. So far the student have mostly been using it to print cases for their Raspberry Pis, though there has also been a Rubics Cube and I did a Venus de Milo to decorate my desk".

In another development the University of Warwick has just erased some information about some amazing new composite material that they are using for 3DP. The material that they are calling "Carbomorph" is conductive and is being used in some really interesting ways... Flex sensors, capacitive interfaces, and more. Check out this web page for more information http://www.3ders.org/articles/20121122-printing-electronic-sensors-using-low-... . This new material looks like it could have some real impact on 3DP projects made by students in schools if/when it becomes available.

Filed under  //  University   education   media   news   printing   student  
Nov 14 / 10:49pm

Geelong, Clevedon and 3D printing

File

From time to time I get requests to explain about 3D printing in schools for different publications. Well this happened a couple of weeks ago from someone in Geelong. Having never heard of Geelong I had to do a quick bit of Internet research.... It's near Melbourne, Australia!

So I jotted down a few of my thoughts, observations and experiences and emailed them off to the guys at Barwon Copying Solutions (BCS)... And then promptly forgot everything about it. It was a very pleasant surprise when I received an email this week with a copy of the page from the Geelong Business News magazine.

And what a brilliant article they have produced, background information and lots of in depth explanations about the use of 3D printing in schools... And some great quotes from me too! It feels "really cool" that what we are doing with 3D printing using our Bits from Bytes machines here in Clevedon School is potentially having an influence on students in Oz.

With the kind permission of the BCS I have posted a copy here. Many thanks to the "guys from Geelong" Paul and Sue.

 

Filed under  //  article   education   media  
Jun 7 / 1:18pm

To baldly go... (3D Printing)... Part 2

File

Following on from a previous post "To baldly go" Tim Rylands who visited D&T a couple of weeks ago has blogged about 3D Printing in the Design & Technology department here at Clevedon School. It makes a really interesting read, so check it out here http://www.timrylands.com/2012/06/07/3d-printing-at-clevedon-school/

Thanks Tim for the brilliant and very complimentary blog post!

Filed under  //  D&T   Product Design   media   news   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  
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  
Feb 9 / 12:21pm

Guardian Classroom Innovation - The Final Chapter??

Ok, we didn't win but our video is still being showcased on the Guardian website and today they published a big article... here is an extract from this page http://www.guardian.co.uk/classroom-innovation/winning-classroom-innovation-videos ......

.... "Technology's role in taking learning off the page and rendering it in new and compelling ways was central to Clevedon school's entry. The North Somerset school's design and technology advanced skills teacher, Dave White, has managed to open up all sorts of cross-curricular links between design and technology and other subjects thanks to his pioneering use of modelling and 3D printers from the company BfB. "The equipment is very reasonable and the plastics from which the models are constructed should also be easily within most school's budgets," he says.

One of the first collaborations tied in with geography. White took satellite data of the Mount St Helens volcano in Washington state, US, which erupted in 1980, to create accurate 3D pre- and post-eruption scale models of the terrain. "In the end students were then able to hold a real piece of physical geography in their hands," he says. "This greatly improved their understanding of the forces involved and the details of the event." White is now busy developing cross-curricular projects with 3D printing at their core; making them available to all schools via a website".

Filed under  //  Education   Media  
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