STEMedTeacher

Just as a heads up, the new version of Wolfram Alpha can produce 3D models that can be printed. So there is a way to have math teachers develop and create math manipulatives.

Teacher at a high school here. I teach engineering courses, so my students have a fair bit of experience in the CAD world. 1. For students in my experience, there are few barriers in the use of the tools when they use Cura, the basic profiles get them moving, the largest problem would be with supports or when using unique filaments. Most of the prints my students make end up prototyped in PLA and then if tolerances and fit are appropriate then they move to something more appropriate for the need. Nylon, PETG, etc. I would say our largest challenge is getting them to dive into the material properties more, the technology is readily usable by the kids in my opinion. 2. For the teacher perspective, it depends on the angle, for me it is no major problem as I am in control of all of our printers so I can teach my students how to operate them and maintain them and they can take charge of that with supervision. The biggest challenge is managing time for printing if you only have one or two machines. 3. Admin, I am not admin, but have spoken to many about this, I hear the same things come up. One being how do we get our teachers on the same page of how to use this so its useful for more than just engineering and science teachers, and two the concern with long prints and over night printing.

So for me in a classroom setting, the CAD files and g code files that go to the SD are named somewhat differently. CAD files get more information as they are not on a small display screen. filename_version#_ProjectName_studentID# and if it is to an assembly I include that after Project Name Example: NameOfFile_V01_ProjectName_12345 The file retains the same name when in STL form and we keep them in the same folder so when looking at the structure it is CAD file followed by STL of the same name. When the g code is saved it retains just filename_version#_revision#_studentID# NameOfFIle_V01_R01_12345 Typically I don't need the Student ID# shown here but it is helpful if there are issues that need to be addressed. The Revision # acts as a place for updates to gcode only when the model is unaffected. It is not descriptive enough however if running multiple materials on the machines. This works for me as my only SD card reading machines are currently Ultimaker running PLA, but if you are running multiple materials on multiple machines it may be beneficial to include something like a material type# and perhaps a machine# such as: FileName_V01_M03_T02_R01_StudentID# FileName V01- Version # M03- Machine #3 (must label machines by type, Ultimaker vs. Printrbot, etc just give each one a number value T02- Material type maybe have PLA=01 ABS=02 etc. R01- Revision # which may or may not be useful StudentID#- This is case by case, you may need to go with Last name First Initial or something of the sort. With all of this, I can still link the file name on the SD card to a CAD file and a student who created it, which is most important for me.

Very cool, this reminds me of an article I was reading from back in early RepRap days about a professor looking at fiber reinforced prints but using long strands of fiber that were placed in the model between layers. The results were quite inconclusive at the time but it lead to many other areas of research and now machines that automate that process. While it would be very difficult I could see a sort of FEA built into a slicer that would be very advantageous and make the end user experience improved when looking at durability of a part. But with information like this, something basic could potentially be implemented into either a slicer or something within CAD or even if it were a step between CAD and slicer.

Hello, PLTW teacher here as well. I teach IED, POE, and CIM. Lots of improvements over the machine you had. I am not sure of what slicer you used, but CURA is very user friendly and students can pick it up really fast. I had one of my students going through and changing filaments, etc. within a day of him getting his hands on it, the machines are that easy to work on. I see this is not a recent post, so maybe you already have the machine, if so what are your current impressions?