K-12 students get in on 3-D printing

The path to 3-D learning has been bumpy for Theia Byrnes.

Alongside two of her classmates at West Branch's Scattergood Friends School, the ninth-grader from Ankeny recently worked on a project to design a castle and create it using the school's new 3-D printer.

'We started out having some issues using the Z-axis,” Byrnes said about the assignment for her world history class.

The prompt was for each student to select a religion and then create an amusement park map with attractions related to it. The structure was modeled in thought after the similar structures at Disney theme parks.

'This castle was supposed to be the centerpiece of the amusement park,” said Byrnes.

The initial attempt to print resulted in 'a big ball” and then the motherboard died. A few flaws resulted in the trio having to work together with their teacher on a new design.

Louis Herbst, the school's academic dean, said those fits and starts are added learning opportunities in line with why he acquired the printer.

'No longer is the teacher the sage on the stage,” he said. 'You just have to figure it out. That's what we want to model for our students. ‘Oh, there's a problem? Solve it.'”

Herbst said that both students and faculty at the school have used online tutorials and tips to figure out how to troubleshoot issues with the printer, which arrived in February.

'I think the bottom line was as a school we kept talking about how, philosophically, we should do more student-based learning,” he said. 'We didn't have a lot of the tools to make the kids' stuff and make it look cool. ... This was a tool that seemed very versatile and able to reproduce objects with a high-level of precision.”

Herbst estimated the cost of the printer at $1,000 and said the biggest challenge hasn't been the cost but rather the fact that it can take hours to print a single object.

Herbst said the school has a number of students interested in 3-D art, though the printer has been used for other classes.

George Held, communications supervisor for the Grant Wood Area Education Agency, said that many member districts have gotten 3-D printers through participating in Project Lead the Way.

Stephanie Wendt, an art teacher at Xavier High School in Cedar Rapids is using that building's new 3-D printer in her 3-D design class. She and the students printed a test object - a crocodile head - for the first time on April 17, even though they got the device in fall 2013.

Her goal is to incorporate new and old technology in service of art while also touching on students' individual passions. 'It's going to make it more relatable in a sense because I can make jewelry on it. They can make vases, functional pieces,” she said. 'If I had kids that were interested in character designs, through cartooning or something like that, they could take a drawing and create it into an actual figurine. To me the overall benefit is being able to bridge the gap between 2-dimensional and 3 dimensional.”

Xavier is a 1:1 school, meaning that each student has a school-issued iPad for learning. Art students can use the device to download apps that tie into 3-D printing. Wendt appreciates that but wants to make sure things don't change too much.

'I don't want to lose the tactileness of creating art,” she said.

Wendt's students are working on an assignment to use the printer to create cellphone cases. The printer is just for art use now, but she said other instructors have expressed interest.

Wendt acquired the school's printer, the cost of which she estimated at $2,000, via a grant and donations. She was initially skeptical about the cost of the actual printer and the plastic material it uses for reproductions, but she's come around and said it will only become more useful as days go on.

'It's definitely something that's going to filtrate into every aspect of life in the future to me,” Wendt said of the technology.

Back in West Branch, Herbst said that he's hoping more students and staff will warm to incorporating the printer into academics. He's planning to do professional development around the device at the end of the term now that the kinks are out.

'I didn't have these delusions of grandeur that we would get this thing and everyone would start going nuts,” he said. 'Next year, the hope is that pretty much every class will use it.”

Herbst said initial feedback has been mixed.

Josie Rutledge of Denver, another Scattergood freshman working on the world history map project, was optimistic.

'If this turns out really well, I would look at it like, ‘Hey, this is worth the money we spent,' respectfully,” she said. 'I feel like the printer has very good potential to inspire students to represent and learn the new style that's going on today. It's a new way to design things. ... I'm glad my fellow students have this opportunity.”

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