Now that you have all of the knowledge for basic 3D design you can start to think about making your own lessons that incorporate 3D printing. The best advice I got on how to get started is to pick a lesson that you already teach that could be enhanced by using 3D printing. That’s how I came up with some of the activities seen in this book. For example, on the first day of classes I like to give students a logic riddle to solve. This is a good topic because they don’t need to have any background knowledge to solve it, but at the same time, it does promote problem solving. Often I have given the Fox, Goose, and a Bag of Beans activity discussed in Chapter 2. Obviously students can solve this riddle without using the figures, but I have found that it is helpful for them to have the objects so that they can actually act out the scenario. In the past I had just printed pictures of a fox, a goose, a bag of beans, and a farmer on paper, but these got wrinkled. When I gave students the 3D printed objects and they could put their fingers through the holes to act it out, they got very excited. I think just the allure of an object being 3D printed is enough of a reason to use it in an activity even if the printing doesn’t necessarily enhance the activity (other than the durability of not having to make new paper copies each year). It has the same effect on me; I still get excited when I 3D print an object that I can then use.
Another tip for making your own lesson with 3D printing is to think about a topic that could be enhanced by the use of a three dimensional model. When I was first trying to think of activities to use 3D printing with I immediately thought of finding the volume by discs and shells in calculus. I know students have so much trouble with this topic and a big part of the problem is that they can’t visualize what the region will look like once a graph is rotated over a line. It helps a lot for students to go through the design phase and actually see the object being rotated. Once the object is printed, it also helps for them to see what the resulting shape looks like and actually hold it in their hands.
Another tip is to have a look around Thingiverse and see what models are out there. Seeing the model can help you think of an activity to use it with. For example, for many of my elementary examples I first found the manipulatives and then thought of an activity to go along with them.
Thingiverse is a very welcoming place. You can find users who you may want to work with or who you can ask questions. You can join a group such as Classroom 3D to find other teachers interested in 3D printing. If there is a specific interest you want to focus on you can start your own group.