Two years ago, a Clark-Pleasant Middle School student in a wheelchair had a simple desire: to be able to reach the light switches in his classrooms.
Using a 3D printer, his classmates created a hook the student could use to reach the switches, helping him overcome a limitation of his disability. While 3D printers can be used to help students explore their creativity, the project showed those creations could also be used to help others, said Julia Tinkle, the middle school’s sixth grade STEM teacher.
“We need to use our gifts and abilities to help others,” Tinkle said. “How can we use this to improve society or someone’s life or situation?”
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Three years ago, the middle school had three LulzBot 3D printers, which the school purchased for Project Lead the Way, seventh and eighth grade STEM teacher Sam Hoagland said.
The past five years have not only seen the introduction and proliferation of 3D printers at Clark-Pleasant, but also the introduction of those printers at Franklin and Edinburgh schools and the Johnson County Public Library. In school, students use those printers in STEM classes, as they use not only the technology aspect in printing objects, but also the engineering aspect in using software to design them.
At Clark-Pleasant Middle School, students printed and sold thousands of fidget spinners, using some of the $5,000 in sales to buy six Anet 3D printers, which cost about $275 each and are smaller and less efficient but a tenth of the cost of a LulzBot, Hoagland said.
The school has since added another Anet, which Tinkle purchased herself, she said.
Sixth-grader Jakelin Torres-Garcia said she was first introduced to the world of 3D printing when she got a miniature animal figure.
“My favorite thing is you can print whatever you want,” Jakelin Torres-Garcia said. “It’s a great way to be creative. You can reflect on what you did and reflect on other things you can do. It’s a great way to be inspired and creative.”
Her classmate, Carmen Lohite, is working on a pencil holder. The ability to create things she can use or give to someone as a gift is her favorite aspect of 3D printing, she said.
Edinburgh schools has had 3D printing in its schools for three years, and started a STEM club this semester that incorporates printing into its projects. For one project, 3D-printed chariots will accompany robotic spheres in a battle bot tournament, said Bob Straugh, the district’s technology director.
Science classes at the district have used miniature 3D-printed hearts and other organs for their lessons, he said.
The Johnson County Public Library White River branch houses two 3D printers, each of which Jason Brewster, who worked at First Maker Space in Indianapolis at the time, donated, librarian Amy Dalton said.
“We’ve done a couple of designs, you can make your own thing, usually a keychain or something small,” Dalton said. “We made cat rings for everyone. The biggest thing was a llama piñata from Fortnite. It was right before a Fortnite competition a couple of months ago. It was printed in two parts, three hours and then another three hours. Maybe six to eight inches tall.”
At school, students can use a software model to connect to those printers and create their own designs, and in the case of Franklin Community High School sophomore Daisy Cobel, that space for creativity has bolstered her aspiration of one day becoming an engineer. The school has two 3D printers, each of which an anonymous donor gave to the school, said Eric Rose, the high school’s mathematics and engineering teacher.
Rose immediately noticed Cobel’s enthusiasm for design in his Intro to Engineering and Design class, he said.
“This is her first year in the program,” Rose said. “She’s very intuitive in how she approaches the geometries in AutoCAD (software).
“Students started with black and white renderings, and when I turned and saw hers, she had not only gone into far greater detail than was required, she had self-discovered the idea of color and how to go into realistic rendering. She had gone far beyond what we were shooting for at that point in the project.”
Cobel, who hopes to go to Purdue University and become an engineer, is nearing completion on a flexible puzzle that can be used as a hand cloth. She is most proud of her design for a hovercraft, she said. Although the finished product didn’t work as planned, the design and thought process is more important than its success or failure, Rose said.
“One of the things I enjoy with the class is the freedom to try things without it always working,” Rose said. “It’s more about the process than the end result. You have to be willing to do the things that don’t work in order to do the things that no one has ever done before.”
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Instead of using ink, 3D printers work by using a filament that is heated and distributed on a platform by a nozzle. A program, such as AutoCAD or Tinkercad, directs that nozzle to lay down that filament in thin layers in precise locations. Once those layers add up, they form an object. This process typically takes at least an hour, but varies depending on the size of the object.
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