NovaCopy Announces 3D Printing Courses

NovaCopy is a Tennessee based provider of 3D printing equipment. In response to growing interest in 3D printing, NovaCopy is launching NovaCopy 3D University to offer 3-hour courses to familiarize current and potential clients with the basic aspects of 3D printing. The hands on course is offered at their location in Nasheville and they hope it will not only educate current customers but help to grow their customer base. More details on these 3d printing courses can be found here: http://3dprint.com/19159/novacopy-3d-printing-courses

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Funny i was approached by the local college to teach a 3d printing class. They bought a couple printers but have no idea how to even turn them on. I think i have to pass though. I just do tbhave the time and im just not a good teacher. I would basically have to design the class and lesson plan myself.

I would love to take a course on 3D printing. But $300 for a 3 hour class seems quite expensive. And, I'm not sure that they can provide a good level of understanding and intro with hands on in 3 hours to allow a beginner to leave with the tools and knowledge necessary to begin working productively with the technology. Using today's off the shelf electronics, its easy to throw together a circuit that would be useful, but creating a case would be half the challenge to make it useful around the house or on the job. Learning in a course how to manipulate the software to produce an item from scratch to fit a particular need is the kind of course I am interested in. Probably more along the lines as jimc stated as a local community college course with perhaps an advanced follow up course the next semester. Knowing how to download a file and press a button to print is nice, but does not approach the level of knowledge necessary to become productively useful.

It sounds like it's more of a demonstration of their printer line so you can figure out which printer you want to buy from them to suit your needs.

Today I gave a class to 8 students, for 65$ an hour (3 hours course)
Believe me, it requires much effort, and that was barely the basic teaching them how to run the machine. Then if we have to talk about configuration during printing, the support material, how to design in a optimal way. I think we could give an entire 1-2 credits course. Yet, they will need to play with the machine to get the experience. Sitting there and listening won't make you good at printing.

I'm not really that good yet with 3d printing so it's nice to know that there are courses being offered for those who are interested in 3d printing. However, I agree that experience is still the best teacher. With 3d printing, a lot can be learned through making use of the 3d printer and trying to experiment on it.