As a special pre-Maker Faire treat, #3DThursday will be celebrating a number of 3D designers from the desktop 3D printing community, culminating in the community #3DThursday Happy Hour event later tonight.

I asked Happy Hour co-host PrettySmallThings for her suggestions and she had this to say:

I’ve been watching the design work of two educators: Mathgrrl & DesignMakeTeach. In many cases, they are using simple CAD software, like Tinkercad, to create unique designs that solve a problem, or teach a concept. It shows that you don’t need access to high end CAD programs to explore awesome projects with 3D printing. Both are documenting their 3D exploration on blogs, in addition to Thingiverse, giving other educators valuable insight into their process and application. The things they’re posting are more than just prints – they’re tie-ins to lesson plans and creative ideas for learning.

Here are more details about DesignMakeTeach:

Design Make Teach is a blog about MAKING in the classroom. MAKING is a process that engages students in thinking, making and sharing. My name is Josh Ajima. I am a teacher. I believe that I can MAKE a difference.

…I give demos, presentations and workshops on 3D printing, technology integration and professional development. I am located in Northern Virginia. (Read more.)

And here are more details about Mathgrrl:

Laura Taalman is a JMU math prof and defender of the universe.

…What would you print if you had a 3D printer in your home? We’ll print one thing for our house every day with either a MakerBot Replicator 2 or an Afinia H-Series and catalog it here, with a picture, an .stl file, and technical notes for each thing.

If you want to see more mathy and technical stuff then visit here, and if you want to see updates on the first 3D-printing general education classroom, visit here. (Read more.)