3D Printing At Discovery Charter School – Part 6
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By David Lewis
“Now, I need a Knife & a Spork & a Pony &…..”
As a parent and educator (I have a MA in Instructional Design), I am having the best time in the world watching the students from Riley’s school start integrating SolidWorks, the RapMan and their own very individual desires to create into a working process. With very little formal instruction from any adult, the group of kids who have started to hang out at the DCSNHAMDL are doing some things that, to me at least, are rather remarkable.
Moving forward form the fork that Vernon designed and printed on Saturday, the gang have come up with a spork, a knife, a really nice hollow hemisphere and successfully debugged the pony model. Let me introduce you to the gang and what they have created.
Vernon: Fork, Hemisphere, Lettering
We have known Vernon since he was two-years old and was in pre-school with our friend Riley. Vernon’s folks are German ex-pats living here in Silicon Valley and may be why Vernon brings a sense of deliberate purpose and attention to detail to the work. Vernon was the first one to come up with and execute an entirely new design (the fork) using SolidWorks and the RapMan.
Amanda (Mandy): Evil Knife
Amanda has been part of the cohort since sixth grade and is a serious maker who takes a lot of joy in the process of creation. Mandy was also involved in the Lego Robotics Challenge with us last year as a robot designer. At our session on Tuesday she came up with what we call the “evil knife”. This is yet another item in the TSA compliant tableware set we are developing.
Doug: Spork, Knife creative catalyst
Doug is another of the cohort from 6th grade and has also been involved in the Tech Challenge, Lego Robotics and now the 3D work. Doug is a huge creative talent who is frequently looking to push the designs a little further and always wants to do something a little fancier (He is also the master of Cortex Command, a PC game the “herd” plays while waiting on prints).
Riley (Our Friend): Spork, Print Deck Driller & Facilitator
Following Vernon’s work in creating a fork, Riley created a “spork” that odd combination of spook & fork that kids love so much. He was successful in building a bowl that will hold liquid although it is still flat bottomed.
Riley has also managed to put a rather neat hole into the print deck by attempting to adjust the print height while the extruder head was printing. While we were able to get the hole filled and flush with the deck, we discovered that the ABS that fills the hole adheres nicely to the new ABS being extruded as the head heats up. We have rotated the deck and learned a valuable lesson.
Dave: (Your humble journalist) debug the Pony
My claim to fame is that I was able to look over the code for the pony that we grabbed from the BFB site would print. I shocked myself by seeing that there was no G108 (extruder RPM specification) in the code we downloaded and I was able to insert and specify a speed that worked. Not bad for an old man…
Next we build gears.
Part 7 >>
