3D Design Challenge Medals for students

thingiverse

I teach at a K-8 school, and my 3D printers are a constant source of curiosity for the kids. We don’t have room for design training in the curriculum, but I have an agreement with the kids that if they design it, I will print it. I was looking for a way to encourage students to learn design, and recognize those who did. I came up with biweekly challenges, each of which has a corresponding medal. This also solved a problem with having kids not know what to build next! How I Designed This These were all designed on TinkerCAD. I use two colors both for aesthetics and to show the kids some new possibilities for their designs. The medals were designed to be quick to customize and to print. Custom Section Objectives This is a motivation tool for students. It defines a concrete project they can work on, and gives them a visible reward for their work, which may encourage other students as well. Audience I work mainly with third to eighth grades, which is a perfect time to start with TinkerCAD, for example. This is also a good age for small motivators like badges and medals. Preparation Students need very basic computer skills, and access to TinkerCAD. Tutorials are available within TinkerCAD, on YouTube, and through Autodesk’s great Ignite site. Steps I developed the first medal in two parts. New models share the same background design and elements of the main design. This allows me to create new medals very quickly. I use the dual extruder wizard in Simplify3D to slice these, but they should work just fine in other software. Results The kids seem to love the medals. Some have accumulated quite a collection. Just as valuable is having some concrete project a kid can work on, avoiding hesitation over not knowing what to build. A nice side benefit is that the kids have something tangible to take home and show their parents, who also occasionally get involved in the design process.