Blended Learning, Playlist for 3D printing

emily_larae_smith

Hello fellow teachers, wondering was anyone created or played with a blended learning technique using 3D printing classes.

Blended learning playlists is a list of projects where students have freedom in creativity but an outline what what is expected to turn in. Most teachers that have these in their classes have a date timeline. By  October 15th you must have completed 5 of these projects. 

Trying to work on developing on for my 3-D printing class, but lacking creativity. 

Any help would greatly be appreciated. 

rune_thorsen229

emily_larae_smith 
This sounds very interesting approach. Around here there are schools with 3D printers, but they seem underutilized. It would be nice to exchange some ideas of how to facilitate that. Sometimes creativity is also suppressed by the lack of knowledge of that is/is not possible with the tools avaliable.

david_kurtz

@emily_larae_smith I have a CAD class that does a some of what you are describing.  Students progress through the curriculum at their own pace.  I do have deadlines, but they are only introduced when 75% of the class has already completed the assignment.  I also allow students to revise projects as many times as they want.  

We start with a few required projects that build skills.  A cube puzzle, a cube with a hole, linear/circular patterns, revolve, make a part from a drawing.  We then move to duplicating a Lego of the student's choice.  They use calipers to take measurements then design the part in CAD.  This allows them to differentiate the project based on their confidence.  Next, we have a partnership with an Art class, designing household products.  CAD students choose their next project from the designs made by their peers in the Art class.  After that, the CAD students can propose their own projects.  Throughout the course I offer a few design challenges for no points (Expo marker, pencil, horseshoe, fidget spinner).

peter_z

@emily_larae_smith PTC Academic has recently designed an exercise especially for users new to CAD and/or Onshape— the "Eyeglasses Editing Exercise", that might fit your needs. This exercise shows new CAD users how to edit and customize an eyeglasses frame using a public Onshape Document, and prompts them to export the results for 3D printing. You can try it here.

We've also worked with Tufts University Center for Engineering Education and Outreach (CEEO) to develop additional Onshape exercises. Here's a link to a page of Onshape Challenges if you're looking for more open ended exercises: https://sites.google.com/view/onshape-challenges/home.

bruce_williams

@peter_z

fascinating exercises!  I would like to share with some students.  I am not seeing how to get the documents at the 'onshape-challenges' page?  Are they public and where do we access?

peter_z

@bruce_williams Good catch. I asked the Tufts team and for the exercises that have public docs, they have added links.

bruce_williams

perfect!  What a great thing for learners to do during 'stay at home'.

justin_36

Thank you @peter_z and @bruce_williams

We've been doing Onshape for many years in the classroom, making our own materials but also referring to Onshape's. Glad to see these two new editions.

Aloha,

Justin

Ste_Wilson

Good shout on those resources!  I don't suppose you could share your resources @justin_36?

huw_gullett

A Project I use is based on Iconic Products with an element of reverse engineering, before the design, model and 3D print.
Students look at the Bic Pen, we discuss what makes an iconic product and look at pens that have copied the design. Students then record the dimensions of the pen barrel, cap, end cap and most importantly the Ink reservoir. Students then move to onshape to make a copy of the reservoir. A drawing is created of the reservoir with say 8 front views on an A4 sheet. This allows the students to then create their own ideas for a barrel shape. They can consider having a cap. Once their first few drawings are done, we look at ergonomics and comfort of shapes. Play doh, plasticine or polymorph can be used to assist students look at shapes and easily change their ideas. Card models can also be made using a layer/ slice modelling technique. This helps students visualise sizes in 3D.
Then its back to the sketches and finalisation of shape, before coming back to Onshape to make the barrel.

When modelling there are different ways of approaching it which is a good way of demonstrating onshape features, start with a solid and hollow, revolve a profile, loft shapes etc. It is also a good time to revisit the original barrel and reservoir. Look at how the reservoir is held in place, the hole in the barrel and cap (why are they there?). It gets students to really look at the minute detail of a product. You could even introduce tolerances! are all the barrels exactly the same size? are the reservoir ends all the same diameters - can they be interchanged? why are they manufactured this way?

When they have a final design - It's time to look at how it will be printed. Which orientation will it be printed in? Does it need splitting in half? how will they be joined? quality of print? does it need support or raft.

If you decide to print them. While the barrels are being printed, students present their work and then look at other refill reservoirs that are available. and create designs for them, If I do this we look at Zaha Hadid ( the queen of curves) and the Buildings the company have created all over the world as inspiration for their 'iconic' design.

When the barrels are printed the moment of truth is when they put the reservoir into it... does it fit? Is it the right length? does it fall out? and importantly is it comfortable to use?

Hope this is of use!

justin_36

stephen_wilson554 said:

Good shout on those resources!  I don't suppose you could share your resources @justin_36?

See private message @stephen_wilson554

huw_gullett

Will look into it as there are many powerpoints and onshape files. What do you think is the best way of sharing these?

Domenico_D

@huw_gullett That sounds like a really engaging project. What grade are the students you generally do this lesson with? 

A good way to share all your resources might be a folder in Onshape. You could import the powerpoints into the relevant Onshape documents and then move the documents into a folder that you could share with interested individuals. 

Another option would be to turn link sharing on for each of the individual documents and post those links. These are just two ways within Onshape. Other educators might have a better idea how to share these resources!

Mr_Jovais

@huw_gullett Love that project as finding the right printing project can be tough with 25 kids and 2 printers as in my case. A pen is the perfect size. I've used the reverse engineering w/ usb chip to create their own cases w/ .001 measurements w/ .005 tolerances. In your case the pen gives the student a lot of options to utilize. They could even push themselves w/ mechanical innards for click pens and even multi ink options. I would love to see what you have if willing to share. I have created a canvas course for my class during quarantine and it worked out nicely. As long as students are on the edu account and you have canvas I can share. The course revolves around OnSHAPE's Learning Pathway - Intro to CAD. cheers

huw_gullett

The Iconics project is year 10!

The first project is in year 9 this is the Workshop licence, Pencil case project.

This is their introduction to onshape and because it is completed after they have made it. They can take measurements from the product.

The second Onshape project is used in a drawing unit, they first learn sketching techniques and within this isometric and Orthographic. The focus at first is basic geometric shapes. We then look at how these can be done in Onshape, and the improvement of accuracy and ease of changing drawings. The key learning element is that it can be done by hand , but learning onshape is a much better way. Both skills are required in the OCR Engineering Design course they undertake.

Within the learning we do talk about changing the orientation of the parts and what should be on an orthographic drawing.
The onshape task is a simple block boat, and comes before they have to redesign an everyday object, this year computer mouse.

After this comes the CAD Container project. Usually the aim is to teach the students how to use corel draw to create the files for lasercutting, however we also look at Onshape and how to import and export between the two pieces of software.

It starts with a 70x70x40 tray, then a 100x100x50 box leading to a100x100x100 container

One of the key learning elements is you cannot just click and drag to make things larger!

After this is the yr10 Iconic Products project. This project I have explained in detail above in a previous post.

After this it's the Vex machines project. After they have assembled and disassembled the machines we look at tolerances for the parts metal against plastic. They then each have a part to model and share.

These can also be adapted to make a new design of part. As well as assembling the machines mechanisms and animate.

The culmination of their work is the coursework units for OCR Engineering Drawing analysis of a USB bullet charger and designing a new case that would include the circuit and a battery to make a power bank.

During Lockdown the students have also had a go at a gumball dispenser...

Hope this helps to show the blended learning that my OCR Engineering Design students take. Don't forget inbetween all of these projects is the theory and many other elements of the course specification/ syllabus are covered.

justin_36

Thank you for sharing! @huw_gullett