This is great. I am thinking of using TinkerCad,

3D Printing
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This is great. I am thinking of using TinkerCad, it seems fairly easy to use, definitely not going with sketch up, but I will try coffee cad. Although I am not sure what 3d software I am going to use yet. I really need project ideas. What are the students going to design with the cad software. I looking for project themes in the engineering and design realm. I like the flash light idea… Help…

Originally shared by Joey Paul Agabiti

I’m a middle school teacher looking for 3d printing ideas for my 7th and 8th grade students

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I quite like FreeCAD, just to add more confusion to the mix.

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Tinkercad is the easiest, but get a cheat sheet or the kids would be frustrated. I have tried many, honestly I rotate though blender, tinkercad, and sculptris mainly. For general info on 3d printing I really like the page http://3dprinter.net

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I’m a 7th grader and we have a 3-d printer in our tech Ed room. I use tinkercad to make everything. I have a free account but its still fun to mess around with and easy to make stuff.

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This is just a random idea I’ve come up with, but perhaps teach them how gear profiles work using it? I haven’t used Tinkercad but I assume it’s somewhat parametric, most of the free ones are. So get a gear set up and let them modify tooth size, tooth profile, etc. Then have an electric motor powered off a constant power supply and use their gears to power a pully that lifts weight on the end of a string. See who can lift the most.

That’s just an obscure example off the top of my head, but basically if I were a kid with access to a 3d printer I wouldn’t want to make boxes, sculptures, or anything else I could do in woods or metals. I would want to do cool complicated stuff with the cool complicated machine. So then your job would be to make the cool complicated stuff easy enough that they can actually do it and not get frustrated.