When I first got the 3D printer my mind swam with different ideas of how to use it in my classroom. …As I spoke with other educators and started thinking about my curriculum, the little idea of looking at bugs quickly became the project I was most excited about. I realized that it fit with our 4th grade science and language arts standards, it made great use of other technology tools that we have, and it was full of room for creative students to work.
…they were instructed to draw a picture and label the different parts of an insect. Students were pointed to entomology websites, and some brought in real insects to observe. This helped them to properly label their insects.
Once their insect existed in their minds and in their journals, they started creating them on an iPad using an app called 123D Creature. While they were creating their insects they were also writing a description of the “Room 30” ecosystem in which the insects were discovered.
…As the students finished sculpting their insects they uploaded them to a shared account on Autodesk.com. Then we downloaded the insects to a computer connected to the 3D printer and started printing them.
The first insect printed. It’s natural habitat is inside the class printer [see below!]….
Every Thursday is #3dthursday here at Adafruit! The DIY 3D printing community has passion and dedication for making solid objects from digital models. Recently, we have noticed electronics projects integrated with 3D printed enclosures, brackets, and sculptures, so each Thursday we celebrate and highlight these bold pioneers!
Have you considered building a 3D project around an Arduino or other microcontroller? How about printing a bracket to mount your Raspberry Pi to the back of your HD monitor? And don’t forget the countless LED projects that are possible when you are modeling your projects in 3D!
The Adafruit Learning System has dozens of great tools to get you well on your way to creating incredible works of engineering, interactive art, and design with your 3D printer! We also offer the LulzBot TAZ – Open source 3D Printer and the Printrbot Simple Metal 3D Printer in our store. If you’ve made a cool project that combines 3D printing and electronics, be sure to let us know, and we’ll feature it here!
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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Thanks for the shout out! I hope you enjoy the project as much as I did!