Thursday, December 18, 2014

Derby's 3D printed dog prosthetics

Recently a dog named Derby was adopted.  (Update 1.31.15: We just learned at the 3DPW Expo that the owner of Derby was Tara Anderson, who happens to be an employee of 3D Systems!)  He is unusual because he was born with deformed front legs. The owners have tried many things to help the dog, like giving it wheels.  But his movements was still limited and, because of the angle of the dog, it was not good for the dog's spine.

Using 3D scanning, legs were made to fit especially onto the dogs joints, giving him the ability to run.  They had a very interesting design - loops rather than pegs, so the dog's legs would not sink into the dirt. 3D scanning made it possible to build these prosthetics quickly, without time-intensive hand fitting.

Read more here.

Watch the video here or below.



Thursday, November 20, 2014

3D Model Ride-Along

I find it hilarious that the kids put this 3D scan of our Head of School on the printhead of one of our 3D printers. He just rides around all day.


Sunday, November 2, 2014

Greetings from the East Bay Mini-Maker Faire & Discovery Days

The kids and I had a couple of lovely days with our fellow makers and scientists at the East Bay Mini-Maker Faire and Discovery Days at AT&T Park.  If you are visiting our page for the first time, welcome!  It will take us a few days (weeks?) to get new posts up, depending on the school schedule.  In the meantime, feel free to:

1.  Go over there in the sidebar ------------------------------>
Type in your email address and hit 'submit' to Follow by Email.  That way, when we do get to writing a post, a notification will appear in your inbox. :)

2.  Follow us on Twitter.

3. Like us on Facebook.

Looking forward to sharing soon!

BPC booth - East Bay Mini-Maker Faire



BPC booth - Discovery Days (BASF)

Saturday, November 1, 2014

BPC Booth at Discovery Days 2014 (Bay Area Science Festival)


This is a post in progress, but here is a blurb from a student... 

The BPC Maker Club hosted our second booth at the annual Bay Area Science Festival Discovery Days at AT&T Park.  Over 30,000 people attended this free festival, where AT&T park is “converted into a giant interactive science museum.” We presented our 7th (tomography) and 8th grade (crystallography) work we’ve done at the Advanced Light Source and the 3D printing and scanning work of the Maker Club.  The Maker Club 3D scanned visitors to our booth, explained the process of 3D printing and computer assisted design (CAD), demonstrated our new Matter and Form scanner, and showed visitors how to use the 3Doodler, a 3D printing pen. This event was different from our usual maker events because, for many visitors to our booth, it was their first exposure to 3D printing and 3D scanning.  It is pretty incredible that you can use this small scanner (Structure Sensor) that snaps onto an iPad to scan someone in just a few minutes and in about 30 minutes you can produce a plastic replica of them!













Thursday, October 30, 2014

Halloween Making (a Mess!)

After a busy season of preparing for outreach events (Solano Stroll, East Bay Mini-Maker Faire, Bay Area Science Festival ), our recent Maker Club meeting involved a  kid-tested Halloween maker activity: carving pumpkins. This maker approach to pumpkin carving involves LEDs, a Dremel tool, alligator clips, toothpicks, twine, cardboard, duct tape, and lots of mess. (Actually, the last one might be a middle school pumpkin carving thing, not a maker thing.) To minimize mess, our teacher made us work in big plastic bins.


We carved a hand shape into one pumpkin. Lots of wires later, inserting your hand into the carved spot caused the LEDs to light up.The pumpkin artists wanted to display the pumpkin at our school halloween fair.

However, when the pumpkin dried out, it ceased to be conductive. Although it was raining on Halloween, because the pumpkin was closed, the inside stayed dry.

So, we sprayed it with a spray bottle. Which meant our pumpkin artists were standing in the rain, spraying an LED covered pumpkin with a spray bottle. I really wish we had a picture, because it was awesome.


The second pumpkin team was trying to see what they could do with LEDs and a pumpkin.  They quickly sawed it in half and hooked up batteries and foil.  Knowing that it was conductive, they wanted to add a layer of insulating cardboard.  After adding batteries and LEDs and cardboard, there remained the daunting task of stitching the pumpkin together. I'm not sure exactly how this happened, but it involved twine and skewers.  But the resulting effect was kind of cool.



-Jane (8th Grade)

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Fixing the 3D Doodler

Ever since we got it a year ago, we have been fighting with our 3Doodler, a glue-gun like pen that allows you to "draw" in 3D by extruding plastic like a 3D printer does. To be fair, most of our problems stem from our use of a cheaper filament instead of buying it from WobbleWorks, the makers of the 3Doodler.  We are a maker club though. What do they expect? After all, our unofficial motto is "It still works..." (said in an indignant tone of voice).

[Teacher note: Or, maybe it's always broken because they are energetic middle school kids...]

Going back to the original point, we tried many tricks to try to fix our 3Doodler. They ranged from shoving a poke-thing up it, to holding it upside down and saying an incantation (it did improve the situation) and were affectionately termed juju-magic.

Then, while in desperation at the East Bay Mini Maker Fair I tried switching to using positive reinforcement while talking to the 3Doodler, I learned that earlier my friend had taken it apart as a project to try and fix it (see pics below).  He told me that when our filament, curved from the spools it comes on, was shoved in our 3Doodler (it wasn't my fault...) it over time bent the internal tubing.




Because of this our filament was catching as it went in, frequently jamming. We had the idea of bending the filament to straighten it, thus decreasing the chance of it catching on the bent inside of the tube. With this small modification, and despite the bent inside of the tube, our 3Doodler runs perfectly.

Now the moral of this is either just pay the money and it will work, take apart your expensive stuff, communication is key, or always tweak. I personally prefer the last one and I know many of my fellow BPC makers prefer the second, but for some reason a few of my fellow students prefer the third.

- Daniel, 8th grade








Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Our First Two-Tone Print!

There's an old English proverb that says, "Necessity is the mother of invention."  In our classroom, we have been printing most things with a single color for simplicity.  Though we recognize the potential in a mid-print filament switch, we also realize the potential for things to go wrong during the transition. However, once one student began a lovely pumpkin print, someone later pointed out that we were going to run out of filament.  After our previous mid-print, filament-exchange experiments, we've sort of avoided the whole process.

Surprisingly, the filament-changing process was smooth and simple.  Once we paused the print, the Makerbot screen walked us though the process. Once un-paused, the print continued as it nothing had happened! The most interesting part was that, when paused, we got a message while the code wrapped up a few layers, getting to a good stopping point. Smart.

A quick Google search of "switch filament mid-print" will uncover many people who use this technique successfully to acheive some pretty cool results.   Interestingly enough, we've read that "MakerBot has invented a new type of process which, if it works properly, will allow 3D printers to change build material mid print.  They have filed a patent to protect this solution over a year and a half ago, but just recently was it published for the public to see."

Another tool in our toolbox! :)











Monday, October 20, 2014

Introducing our Othermill

After our experiences with 3D printing, we have been looking forward to venturing into the long-established world of subtractive manufacturing.  The Othermill is a new tool in our classroom.

The kids will write more about how they use it soon, but one of the first lessons we learned?  It is FAR louder than the 3D printers. :)  The 3D printers basically run all day in my science room.  This one is a little harder to ignore.






Sunday, October 19, 2014

BPC Maker Club at the 2014 East Bay Mini-Maker Faire

This post is in progress, but here is a blurb from one of the kids... 

On October 19th, the BPC Maker Club went to the East Bay Mini Maker Faire to explain what we tinker with in Maker Club in addition to how we learn in science.  At our tables we introduced people our 3D printers, 3D scanned our visitors, and helped people make their own 3D drawings using our 3Doodler.  We were in an out-of-the-way place, so at first traffic was slow, but after word started to spread, our room was packed!  Younger children especially enjoyed using the 3Doodler as they were able to draw their own 3D printed design.  When they learned that they could lift the pen off the page and draw on the air, their faces would light up with excitement. We then explained to interested people how we were able to 3D print data, enlarged over two hundred times its actual size, to create models that we can use during science class in order to better understand visually how the science worked.  These different parts of our booth reflected the Maker Faire's slogan, "The Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth," by both helping people have a great time as well as learn about an ever-expanding and fascinating new field. (Daniel, 8th grade)



This 7 second clip represents about 2.5 hours of our day at the Faire. Created using Framelapse on an LG G3 taped to the wall.



More pictures from the event:










Saturday, October 18, 2014

Tales of a 3D Printer Shout-Out! :)

So, I needed a link from our blog earlier today. When I googled it,  I was surprised to see this post appear in my search results.


Apparently, a blogger named Karie Huttner wrote a post about 3D Printing on discoveryeducation.com and had these three good lessons to share:

Lesson 1 – Consume to Create
Lesson 2 – Connect with your Community
Lesson 3 – Resources

Under resources, she writes, "You aren’t the first one to go down this path.  Tapping into resources like the Invent to Learn website resources will help immensely.  Connect with other educators.  Follow blogs like MakerHome and Tales of a 3D Printer… you just never know what you will learn."

Sweet! We're a resource!

Monday, October 6, 2014

Finding our (Work)Flow

One of the things we constantly struggle with is prioritizing time on the printer. The kids are always in the room at recess, lunch, passing periods, even occasional weekends... trying to get prints started. We've tried (1) first-come-first-served, (2) Google Doc sign ups, (3) Hunger-Games-style (last kid standing uses the printer), (4) dry erase board sign up.... but nothing has stuck yet.  

Below is our newest attempt at managing the workflow on the printers. The idea is that when the printer is idle (which is getting rarer and rarer these days), the kids and/or I can grab a sheet and run a few prints. 

Does anyone have advice on a good system that works?






Saturday, September 20, 2014

Matter and Form Meets Middle School

This is what our Matter and Form scanner looks like right now:


Here's what it is supposed to look like: 

https://matterandform.net/
Yes, we took it apart.... 

(Note: We really don't recommend doing this.  Nor do the folks at Matter and Form recommend doing this.  In fact, had we not brought it crashing to the ground, dislodging the plate from where it belongs and sending it scattering across the floor, we would have much preferred to have a functional scanner without pipe cleaners! Kids, always get your parent's [or teacher's] permission before taking things apart.)



Of course, our teacher was a little worried about voiding the warranty, but I am pretty sure we voided the warranty when a kid accidentally got his foot wrapped in its power cord and pulled the entire thing to the ground. 

As of yesterday, we hadn't quite gotten our scanner working yet, but we've gotten some OK scans from it. But remember, this is a middle school. We were working on it, but we had it out on the edge of a table. Then... oops.

The scanner did not break it as much as we thought, which is a credit to the construction of the scanner. What the fall did do, however, was dislodge the disk on top of the scanner, so we tried to put the disk back. Then we had to take it apart, because the disk doesn't fit back in from the top.  We had to take the scanner apart and attach the disk from the underside.  (Did we mention that it was all greasy to promote turning?!)



This worked, except we didn't get the motor aligned with the disk.  Well, we didn't really realize the gears needed to align between the motor and the disk.

Then we tried to take it apart again. This time, we broke off some bearing holders inside.  After complimenting its construction, it seems we had found its weakest link!  These tiny pieces of plastic poked up and supported three metal bearings.  Oops.

Not so much of a credit to the scanner, but multiple deconstructions by middle schoolers was probably not a problem that they were anticipating. We came up with a high-tech solution to the broken parts - pipe cleaners. We put pipe cleaners where the holders were, like this:



High tech operation going on here. Here's another pic of the underside of the disk, with our pipe cleaner bearing holders.


We had to take it apart once more, (that's three times if you're counting), because we didn't screw in the back properly. In order to screw it back into the base, we'd have to remove the disk from the top.  Which is what started this entire mess in the first place!  [Teacher's Note: reminds me of this.]  We think that it was originally assembled by a machine, so we can't actually put it back together properly. It does scan, though, it just doesn't have all the casing on.

So now it looks like this: 


We are running a scan as we type this.  So far, so good. 

So, it is working, but... these are all the parts that used to be in the scanner, but aren't right now....
And, just because why not, here is a scan of the Matter and Form scanner taken with our Structure Sensor using Skanect!






Friday, September 19, 2014

Avi Reichental's TED talk published

Avi Reichental of 3D Systems gave a TED talk back in March 2014.  It was recently posted for our viewing pleasure.  If you enjoy 3D printing, please do yourself a favor and watch it. :)
3D printing is not going to catapult us into the future, but rather it's going to connect us with our heritage; and it's going to usher in a new era of localized, distributed manufacturing that is actually based on digital fabrication.
In this video you can see the first object ever 3D printed in 1983 by Chuck Hull.  Also, hear about the incredible story of 3D System's challenge to print Amanda Boxtel's a custom-fit and more feminine EKSO Bionics exoskeleton.  He even talks about kids and new tools such as haptics!



Of course my favorite Avi quote is "With 3D printing, complexity is free."

The best use of our digital thermometer yet!

Troubleshooting the Cube.  Again.



(more on this fix coming...)

Monday, August 25, 2014

3DPW Expo Seattle Report & Droplit DIY Kit!

This weekend, I got myself an expo pass to the 3D Printer World Expo in Seattle, WA.

Now I've got our eye on this SLA machine, Droplit, an entirely open source resin-based stereolithography (SLA) printer soon to be offered by SeeMeCNC!  It will come as a kit, although all the pieces (save for that one metal cylinder shape) are open source!  The UV source comes from a DLP projector from which you will need to remove the UV filter.  To cure the resin?  A UV nail lamp from Walmart!  Now, THAT's our kind of budget.  You can read more about the Droplit on this 3Dprint.com post.







I also got the chance to chat with the Matter and Form folks.  We will be receiving ours any day now!


A 3D printer zoetrope - what a great idea and potentially awesome collaborative school project. :)


Finally, I wanted to acknowledge the Made in Space project.  It's pretty incredible - they plan to send their first printers into microgravity on September 21!


Eventually, they hope to use moon dirt as their "filament" to build what they will need.