Fifth Graders 3D Design and Print For Language Arts Class

Our 5th grade language arts teacher has the students reading "The Neptune Project" by Polly Holyoke. Here's an excerpt from the book... "Nere feels more at home swimming with the dolphins her mother studies then she does hanging out with her classmates. Nere has never understood why she feels some much more comfortable and confident in the water then on land, but everything falls into place when Nere learns that she is one of a group of kids who - unbeknownst to them - has been genetically altered to survive in the ocean. These products of "The Neptune Project" will be able to build a better future under the sea, safe from the barren country's famine, wars and harsh laws."

In the first session in the Lab, students were introduced to Tinkercad, an online CAD program by Autodesk. After a brief introduction, the students set off to play with the program on their iPads. They were encourage to continue to play at home since the program is web-based, they could have access to their project from any device.

The next session, we began the design process. First we asked questions like: what do things that go underwater look like? Why do they look like that? How big can our 3D print be? What is the time line we are working with? We stared off by looking at pictures of underwater structures (submersibles, underwater research stations, etc.) What were some similarities? Why were they shaped that way? This led to a discussion of pressure and how the shape of a structure reacts to that pressure. Next they started to imagine what they wanted to make...some drew designs on their iPad while other used pencil an paper. Some student started their own research on underwater structures. Even though they were working individually, there was a good amount of sharing of ideas and questions for their peers. Once they had some ideas, they picked one, and started designing on Tinkercad. Student were told by their LA teacher they would be evaluated on three criteria: The thought they put into their design, the creativity of their design and the effort put into the design (from beginning planning stages to completion).

In the third and fourth session we totally geared to be work sessions. Tinkercad was up and running and as soon as their design was created, we would sit down, evaluate it's "printability" and if no improvements were needed, we would head to the 3D printers and start creating.

We currently have five printers in our Lab. Three Printrbot Simple Metals (that are 4 years old) and two brand new AnyCubic i3 Mega.

Here are some of the first prints our 5th graders created.