My students and I have experimented with a 3D printer for the last year. I'm not going to lie.. I have had many stressful moments of frustration - particularly after that one time the filament melted into the extruder and I had to use a blowtorch to clean out the blockage - but these are stories for another day.
I have a love and hate relationship with our da Vinci Jr. 2.0 Mix 3D printer (this is not a sponsored post). The printer is admittedly a good-looking machine and has a handy transparent cover to protect curious hands from getting burnt. It also boasts the ability to extrude two colours simultaneously thanks to its fancy double-filament feature. But apart from these benefits, this printer isn't the best you can get for the price (approximately AU$800-$1000 at the time of writing this blog post). It doesn't have features that others rave about such as a heated bed, option for manual calibration and ability to use different types of filaments. The DVJ 2.0 Mix has a regular glass bed which only allows for automatic calibration and will only accept XYZ PLA filament. This means I am not able to experiment with the diverse materials available such as ABS, resin, nylon, wood, glow in the dark and food-grade filaments. Regardless of these disadvantages, however, the show must go on and 3D print we must. When using the 3D printer, students get the chance to be innovative and learn design software, even when the designs start off as someone else's. For example, prints often need to be adjusted, such as adding holes to make keyrings or letters to form a name. Students seem to quickly overcome any fears regarding technology, as their motivation to learn is fuelled by the item's relevance to their lives. Sometimes prints are successful.. but oftentimes they are not, and students then need to adjust their designs and reprint. It is through these experiences that students are able to build resilience and start to understand that failure is merely a type of learning (a rather effective one too!). Additionally, students naturally end up collaborating by helping each other during the design phase or when finishing items using sandpaper and paint-pens. It is 21st century learning in the 21st century (go figure). If you are thinking of getting a 3D printer in your library makerspace, don't overthink it. Any mistakes and misjudgements are part of the process when learning to use a 3D printer - and as your needs change, so too your ideal printer will change. I promise you, having a 3D printer in your makerspace will be worth it. Here is a recent print downloaded from Thingiverse: Cute Mini Octopus designed by McGybeer www.thingiverse.com/thing:3495390. This is one of my all time favourite 3D prints as it has been so well designed that there is nothing further to do - no supports or rafts needed. After it was printed, my students and I loved playing with the octopus to try to work out how the links in the tentacles were printed without actually being stuck together (mind blown!). The result is super cute yet quietly complicated. Click my Twitter post below to see what the fuss is about.
Looking for more 3D prints?
See my Pinterest board below for inspiration. Other websites I highly recommend are:
Both of these website are F R E E and E A S Y for beginners. Take a deep breath, jump in and immerse yourself in the fascinating world of 3D printing. You won't regret it! -BJK This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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