Teacher/Professor Introductions

[Eddie]

Please use this thread for introducing yourself. Please tell us what level of education you teach, and how long your school has been utilizing 3D printing.

Eddie

[logu]

I'm am Ingeneer, from Italy. I'm a researcher and I'm going to start to study the impact of 3d print in 5/6 year old pupils.

[richardphat]

Still an undergraduate student I am, teachers and school department is willing to hire me as tech lab assistant. I'd say the ammount of time and energy repairing/printing and modifying design that are actually easier to print far surpass most of anyone at school.

Currently, I am working for printing turbomachinery rotor and stator. I do have project about printing dog bones for tensile strength test under specific fibers orientation.

[RNeil]

I teach engineering graphics at a community college. I am still trying to figure out why the teachers have "student" in their posts.

[JohnA136]

Because they do not have enough posts to have graduated to the next level? It may not be a measure of technical experience but just a label for the participation in this group?

[Pintstein]

I'm a substitute teacher with a startup company aiming to provide 3D printer education and repair services to schools, libraries and hobbyists. Before I dropped out of my PhD I taught university biology labs like anatomy and physiology but now I substitute teach High school and Middle school. I have purposely been getting experience repairing and recalibrating a wide range of FFF printers so that I can fix, recalibrate or at least diagnose the problem within two hours of seeing a machine for the first time. When I substitute teach there is often a planning period or two that I am imagining I could use to get machines in good working order.

The biggest problem with this business model is that 3D printing is difficult to learn and few teachers have the time to master it. In an attempt to solve that problem, I am hosting a Makeathon at Twin Cities Makerspace designed to give teachers the hands on experience they need to use a 3D printer in their classroom. Do you think a 28 hour party with access to five 3D printers and an instructor skilled in Blender, TinkerCAD, OpenSCAD and Fusion 360 would be sufficient to give teachers a base for exploring the world of 3D printing? http://pintsteinpro.com/make.html
If not, what else would you feel is required to get a foothold in the world of 3D printing?

[JohnA136]

While the hobbyist field of 3D printing has evolved leaps and bounds since 2009, it is still evolving fast. Things that are new today may be outdated in months? While some people find 3D printing and printers intuitive, others find the building, calibrating and adjusting very frustrating. That, and the fact that the actual printing process is rather slow, does not really lend itself to a fixed time, classroom activity. So many schools ran out and bought 3D printers that are now just sitting on a shelf somewhere. As a retired teacher, I know the frustration level of many of these printers in the classroom. A weekend class/intro might fuel interest in some teachers but is it not near enough time for them to master both the creation software and operation of most printers.

[Pintstein]

I have been concerned about that. Unfortunately I pay my bills by working in a factory 2pm-10pm which makes shorter but more frequent events for teachers problematic. Luckily plenty of universities offer that kind of 3D printing instruction so at least if a teacher wants instruction spread out over time where they can "do their homework" and come back to the printer that exists.
My event is an attempt to help curious novices get a solid understanding of what they need to learn more about to become an expert. I think 28 hours with 5 different make and models of printer allows a lot of understanding to develop.

[JohnA136]

You may be right and I wish the best of luck. My concern is that you may be be offering too much at one time?

If I was designing such a seminar, I might offer different sessions for each make so that a prospective owner could learn how to operate, trouble shoot and calibrate "his" printer.

Actually we have been quite successful doing just that. My son and I run weekend seminars where we give the participants a box of parts on Saturday Morning and they go through a step by step process of building, calibrating and printing with their own printers. Sunday afternoon they leave with their assembled printer, all calibrated and several test prints that they have printed on their own printer. We have a 100% success rate but do not cover any design/slicing software.

[Pintstein]

very cool. are you making i3 Prusas? I've thought about hosting a make your own 3D printer class but have not done it yet.