Draw your Learning: Makerbot Printshop Tutorial

thingiverse

3D printing through CAD (Computer Aided Design) allows students to design, print, and interact with their learning. However, most CAD tools take multiple class sessions to complete a design and will require a certain level content knowledge on the CAD tool you are using. The Shape Maker tool in the Printshop app allows for an the almost instantaneous production of students’ learning, and the best part is if they can draw, they can CAD! Standards NGSS Overview and Background The following tutorial can be used to have students create the follow and much more…. Tessellations - Rulers - Geometric Shapes - Clock Faces - 5/10 Frames - Nets - Area vs. Perimeter Models - Graphs - Visual Fraction Models - Words for Foreign Language Learners - Protractors - Scientific Models (Image 1) Image 1 Lesson Plan and Activity Shape Maker Within the Printshop app for iOS, there are many interactive CAD modeling tools that let students see how they can manipulate a 3D shape. For many students, this is a great first introduction to what CAD is. The Shape Maker section in the app allows for endless options in your student's designs. Outlined below is how to have your students in Kindergarten all the way through High School benefit from CADing through drawing. There are two main ways to have your students use Shape Maker. First through the use of graph paper (see link below), and second through free form drawing. Graph Paper There are many applications where you will want to have your students create their learning with the use of graph paper. Maybe you want your students to use the lines in math manipulative creation, or just to give a better reference for their drawings. However, you cannot use off-the-shelf graph paper for this. For example, if you has students draw an outline of a planned building on regular graph paper. (Image 2) Take a picture with the Shape Maker app of it. The 3D model would turn out looking like the bottom image in image 2 Not quite what you want! However, if you use the graph paper found in the Thing Files, you will be able to have models where the lines don’t show up. The lines are light enough for the app to not turn them into a shape but dark enough for your students to use them in their work. There is both a ¼ “grid and 1 cm grid paper. Image 2 Free Form Drawing If using graph paper is not what you need you can use plain white A4 paper. When having students draw their learning on the paper it is best to use dark and thick lines. This is best achieved with black, brown, blue, or purple broad tip or felt tip markers. Also, when you take the picture of drawing you want to make sure that only what you want to be turned into a 3D model gets captured in the shot. Anything in the cameras field of view i.e. tabletop, other drawings, will get turned into a 3D model as well. (Image 3) From a Drawing to a Picture to a 3D model ready for printing. Image 3 Additional options Once you have taken a picture with the shape maker app and the app has turned it into a 3D model you have 3 additional options to edit your model with. see image 4 1-Height Use this tool to change the height of the model. 2-Backing This tool gives you 4 different options for the back of your model. 3-Ind. Piece Height You can use this tool to either delete individual pieces within your designs or to change different parts of your model to have varying heights. Image 4 Saving and Printing The Printshop app works hand in hand with the Makerbot Desktop or Makerbot Print software. When you set your desktop software up for the first time to run your Makerbot printer you will be prompted to set up a Makerbot account. You can use those same account details to register all of your schools iPADs with the Printshop apps. (Image 5) Image 5 Materials Needed Makerbot Printshop App - iOS only Attached Graph Paper Duration of Lesson Lessons will vary but all student creations can be designed and made in 1 class period.