Design for Teachers

[Pintstein]

3D printers are just a toy until you know at least a little bit of a design software. After you can take things from your imagination and make the files your printer needs to make a physical object, 3D printers become an amazing tool. I'm a substitute teacher with a startup company aiming to provide 3D printer education and repair services to schools, libraries and hobbyists. 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 do teachers need to get a foot hold on 3D printing

[awerby]

Really, a 28-hour party? Those teachers must have a lot of endurance...

[Pintstein]

With brevity always comes a lack of description. Participants have access to my 3D modeling skills and 5 3D printers for 28 hours but are by no means expected to participate for 28 hours straight. Think of it as a party. Do what you like but make sure you are being excellent to each other.

And yes. I do have quite the endurance. When I built my character, I maximized his constitution