I am extremely fascinated by the world of 3D printing and its potential for the future in any number of different industries, including education. I am also the first to admit that I’m still a newbie. Up until a week ago, my experience was comprised of a few dozen prints on the Cubify Cube, the use of TinkerCAD for design, and selecting items we find on Thingiverse that apply to our student projects. 

While current designs are limited to the Cube’s small footprint, that’s not to say it hasn’t been useful. A recent highlight of the use of 3D printing here on campus is an 8th grader who, in his creation of an underwater submarine during the DEEP project, used TinkerCAD to model the fins he needed for stability and maneuvering. It took him all of 30 minutes to get the flavor of TinkerCAD, design his pieces to integrate with his servo motors, and request to use the Cube. His first prints came out beautifully, and are already embedded into his project. (If you decide to read into the DEEP project link above, look for the sub with the red triangular fins from 2014.)

One major benefit of the Cube, its plug & play nature, is also its shortcoming as a teaching tool. So much is done for you that there is less control and viewing of the finer aspects of printing an object. On the positive side, its healing tool will automatically correct for errors in design, but on the flip side, you can’t control the temperature of the hot end, set the print resolution, or view the details of the print process as you might in Slic3r and GCode. For these reasons, among others, I decided to build my own 3D printer. 

Now, when I say "build my own 3D printer", please don't picture me designing it from scratch, ordering all of the parts separately, or laser cutting the frame. While I have the physical tools to do so, my knowledge level is not that high. Rather, I purchased a Printrbot Simple Maker's kit from Amazon. At less than a third of the cost of a Cube, I couldn't resist. The opportunity to build a 3D printer for $350 would allow me to dive in and make mistakes without too much damage to my pocketbook.

Though this kit comes with just about everything necessary for printing, there is still quite a learning curve. There's more nuance in building a 3D printer than assembling, for example, the model airplanes of my childhood. I can equate it most to my days building computers from parts purchased at the Pomona Computer Fair in the mid-1990s, finding that perfect chassis, adding the motherboard, RAM, video card, floppy and hard drive. I was intrigued then about the wonders of building my own computer, and I feel the same today about this new field.

The entire build took approximately 6 hours of uninterrupted time on a Saturday, and another three hours calibrating the following day. Documentation from Printrbot is ok, but I needed to dig deeper when it came time to calibrate the X, Y, and Z axes and the extruder. Through the build I've learned a tremendous amount about the actual mechanics of the print process, as well as the interaction between the hardware and software. I went with the suggested Repetier software, which integrates Slic3r and outputs GCode. You can view the Picasa web album of photos below for more details on the build. I have also included other online resources I found helpful during the process. 


Resources
Printrbot Getting Started Guide - Official guide from Printrbot
Josh Marinacci's Printrbot Simple Getting Started Guide - I found this guide tremendously helpful for Slic3r set up and calibration of the X, Y and Z axes.
Slic3r Printing Tips - I used this guide to create different settings in Slic3r, for solid versus hollow prints.
Printrbot Talk Forum - This forum was helpful for reading how others were experiencing and working through all kinds of issues ranging from set up, configuration, printing, software and more.
Printrbot Simple Build - My Picasa web album of the build process

Inspired by a chapter from the book Design, Make, Play (Honey, Kanter) about an project called Happy City wherein visitors to a museum participate in building a small community, our first Creator's Studio activity this trimester is LuminoCity. In Happy City, the miniature town is set up as an exhibit, and participants create their own "residence" adding to the many that have come before, and in this way expand the city limits. In our version, I am using the basic idea of city building, but integrating the concept of circuits. The materials are cardboard and anything students can use from our collection of recycled materials, and LittleBits components for their circuits. In a future iteration, we will also look at 2D and 3D design, bringing the laser cutter and 3D printer into play. 

Students built a variety of structures, from residential homes to windmills, open pillared buildings, and even a plexiglass walled home, complete with ceiling fan. To see further details of their particular home projects, please visit the student blogs for Spring 2014.

I found this activity extremely accessible for students new to electronics and circuitry. While LittleBits might in some ways misguide a learner on the concept of circuits (not seeing the circle of the circuit), we had a pre-lesson on how a battery works, and what the flow of electrons looks like as it travels through a circuit. Adafruit's B is for Battery video is a great illustration of this concept for younger audiences. Beyond the electronics piece, this activity provided lots of opportunities for students to get creative in design and making. I do hope to follow up with the use of the laser cutter and 3D printer later in the trimester.

Below are some photos of the current buildings.

DISCLAIMER: Please note that I do not hold any rights to the name "LuminoCity", and thus this project should not be confused with another Lumino City,  an incredibly artistic project in its own right. Nor is there any relation to the LuminoCity show that debuted in Atlanta. In my desire to come up with a uniquely relevant name for the project, a quick Google search put my hopes for originality to rest.

As we begin the second session of Creator's Studio, a lot has changed in our PIRL Terrace space. Our laser cutter is up and running smoothly, and I have a much better sense of its potential now, having used the device through the middle of the first trimester, and in a variety of other curriculum integrated projects over the past few months. We have added a number of materials and supplies from Trash for Teaching to allow students to select from a wide range of oddly shaped and colored items when building their projects. We have added more power tools and storage containers.

All of this has led me to question if abundance fosters creativity or are learners stifled by it as a result of being overwhelmed? On the end of the spectrum, do constraint and limitation of resources put greater creative juices to work?

In one chapter from the book Design, Make, Play (Honey, Kanter), Mary Simon and Greg Brown discuss the idea that abundance can spur creativity, both the abundance in variety of objects as well as the abundance of any given object. "That kind of variety stimulates all sorts of ideas",  makers placed in this kind of environment "scoop up treasures by the bagful and say 'I don't know what I'm going to do with this...but I'll think of something!'" 

I've witnessed this first hand with our own students. During a recent 6th grade history project, students studying ancient civilizations were asked to build a structure representing either China or Egypt. While traditional projects of this sort result in mostly sugar cube pyramids, it was interesting this year to see students rummaging through our Trash for Teaching materials for items of appropriate color and texture to apply to their project. 

It might also be said that creativity can manifest itself best in constraint, in the scarcity of resources available. I think back to the scene from Apollo 13 where the team in Houston is tasked with making a square object work in a round opening given the limited materials in the astronauts' lunar module. In this scenario, people are forced through constraint of resources and time to solve a problem with real world implications, in this case life and death. The same can be said for engineering the next great product using the most cost effective materials and efficient manufacturing processes, thereby increasing potential revenue.

I believe both premises to be true when it comes to student creativity. When presented with an abundance of items and the abundance of any given item, students get excited about the prospects of creating something from them. Ideas surface from seeing so many colors, shapes, textures, that might not under other circumstances. Students are heard saying "Let's use these plastic containers to hold water and make the Nile River look real", and "I can make all of these beads look like the skin on the dragon". 

In contrast, the imagination can also be challenged when faced with a problem of limitation. "You can build whatever kind of house you want, but it must remain within these property lines, and can only include these materials. You need to make the house light up or have some kind of motion, but are only allowed these electronic supplies." Ahh, that's a topic for the next blog...

What do you think? Creativity through abundance or constraint?