Difficulties for using 3D printing in Schools

[owlie]

1) If you are a teacher in a school working with 3D printing, what are the main difficulties for your students in using this tool?
Having the ability to generate their own structures. I've found it is easy to find a model or part someone else has made but getting students to turn their own ideas into something that is printable has been quite the task. We are using currently using a Dremel Idea Builder to print sculptures made using Sculptris. We have a Skanect with Structure Scanner that we use in conjunction with an iPad and iMac to process 3D scans which has generated a lot of student interest. It seems to me that students are more willing to scan something and then print it or scan something, modify it using Sculptris and then print it than generate something on their own.

2) if you are a teacher in a school working with 3D printing, what are the main difficulties for you to conduct your teaching program or classes?
Getting the students update with the technology in general. There seems to be a fair amount of file conversion or project progression while preparing for printing and the students seem to get lost if it is more than a two step process. We may scan and process something in Skanect, modify it in Sculptris and then run it through Meshmixer to optimize geometry or for support structures before we load it into Dremel's software for printing. I think it the ability to keep track of the workflow is troublesome for them. There is quite a different feel associated with a physical object versus a folder of electronic files.

2) If you are a director or administrative staff, what are the main difficulties for your institution in incorporating this technology for your teaching programs? Are they related with the high cost and number of machines necessary? Is it a matter about lack of skilled staff?
Cost is always an issue. I cannot speak on the number of machines because our experience so far has shown the more time intensive task is in generating an object or project. We have had our printer for about two years and it is used by a dedicated group of individuals. It has been presented more as an option for expression rather than a necessity of a particular class. The staff have become skilled in it use though the software options can be dizzying.

[owlie]

I was actually just looking at Tinkercad. Our school is a two-year college that is heavily populated with student athletes. I teach a majority of science classes and have been wanting to use the 3D printer in conjunction with some of our honors projects. I actually just got a Prusa i3 kit so I could learn how everything works and then help the students, now that it's up and running I'm trying to figure out what software to use apart from what the art classes are doing.

That robot blog is pretty cool, I actually used a Robotics Shield Kit from Parallax for my bio class last semester as an introduction to programming and robotics in relationship to evolution and how we could model evolutionary process through design progression with the robot. Most of the kids I work with have never seen a line of code or dabbled in CAD like programs.

[Bitacovir]

Thanks very much owlie. Your answers are very interesting.