Tag: digital fabrication

A Digital Fabrication Christmas

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Finished star

For the first time ever, I got my own Christmas tree. It was a spur of the moment decision to make my apartment more festive. After picking up the tree on the way home the gym, I had to figure out how I was going to decorate it. I’m a huge fan of not buying ornaments and have truly avoided it over the years because it’s just more fun to make them yourself. With 3D printers at my disposal I realized I could have a lot of fun designing ornaments as well as a star to top my tree!

I first went to work on the star and decided I wanted to be a star but also use my trusty soldering iron to get it to light up. I wanted to make the star as hollow as possible so I could make the LED inside pop as much as possible. I decided to use my favorite color changing LED’s with a battery pack with a simple slide switch. I hot glued the battery pack to the back of the star as well as some of the loose wires. I’m so excited to add it to my tree!

  • Tinkercad design
  • Back of star! Electrical tape covers soldered ends.

Next was planning the ornaments. In the past year I’ve realized how deeply I’m drawn to geometric shapes. Luckily Tinkercad makes that need of mine quite easy to execute. Since my tree is on the smaller side, I made the ornaments a bit smaller. I chose to use white filament because I love the matte look it provides. But I also went crazy and decided to see how glitter looked on them. They look more crisp without the glitter and it’s fun having a blend of some with and without the glitter.

Empowering Girls in the Makerspace

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Feminists Unite!

Next to sustainability, empowering girls in the Makerspace has been my focus for this school year. This initiative came after seeing how girls were using the makerspace during the first year of operation. They were building interesting creations but they generally chose to experiment with more traditional crafting materials. I’m totally for this but I wanted to find a way to create a bridge between crafting and digital fabrication.

First sketches

To get this initiative off the ground, a Feminist Maker club was created. Using the term ‘feminist’ was landed upon because it’s inclusive and I wanted anyone who was interested to join. The first task for this club was to create logos for our identity. They first sketched out the designs and then I showed them how to use Illustrator so the designs could get transferred to various digital fabrication software. Each member designed their own and in the end we organically ended up with two design options. Currently we’re using the vinyl cutter and the embroidery machine to show off the logos. The next step to start thinking about how we want to utilize them i.e. keychains, t-shirts, totes or even jewelry!

Conditional Art Vinyl Experiments

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After designing vinyl initial stickers in Illustrator with my 7th and 8th graders, I wanted to continue their connection with using Illustrator, Silhouette Cameo and the process for applying vinyl to surfaces. The inspiration behind this project came again from Erin E. Riley’s The Art of Digital Fabrication.

My makerspace has a pretty big white wall which I’ve been waiting to utilize. After reading the section in Erin’s book on Design With Rules, I decided it would be a great jumping off point for what I wanted to do with my students.

After exposing students to Sol Lewitt and his use of Conditional Design blueprints, I gave each student a slip with a specific design rule on it. Each student then had to utilize this design rule in Illustrator, setting their project size to 12in X 12 in, the size of a vinyl sheet. Once students completed their design rule, they would use the Silhouette Cameo to cut out the design. Each student’s vinyl sheet was to then be transferred onto the wall I spoke of earlier.

Examples of rules were:

  • Fill your page with no more than 15 triangles. Using the “Line Segment Tool” fill the rectangles with lines. Make it so the lines in triangles next to each other are moving in the opposite direction.
  • Fill your page with acute triangles of varying sizes. Make sure an angle on each triangle connects with 1 additional triangle.
  • Fill your page with no more than 15 triangles. Using the “Line Segment Tool” fill the rectangles with lines. Make it so the lines in triangles next to each other are moving in the opposite direction.

One outcome I didn’t expect from this project was how having students add their designs to the wall would give them additional ownership of the space. They proudly share with each other which design is their own. The effect is also quite stunning. I’m looking forward to see how they use Silhouette for personal projects going forward.

Interactive Robot Designs

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For the first time, the 6th graders entering my classes already have a foundation with using 3D design which is allowing my to start them off with projects involving higher levels of thinking. One of their projects this year is to design interactive robots using Hummingbird Kits. Unlike the project I did last year with 4th grade, the 6th graders will be required to use several types of sensors in their designs to allow for an interactive experience. I’m also giving them option of 3D designing aspects for their creations.

When designing my example for my students, I really wanted to make it able to move using a sound sensor. The tricky part was adjusting the code for the sound sensor so it wasn’t overly sensitive. I really wanted it to only respond to my voice or to the sound of clapping hands. The distance sensor was placed in lieu of eyes so that the mouth would open or shut if someone was close by.

Reacting to the sound of my voice!
Distance sensor in use!

Designing with Tinkercad Codeblocks

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Since Tinkercad Codeblocks have shown up in the past year, I’ve been awaiting for the right inspiration to use it in the classroom. Of course while I was blissed out in a yoga class, I saw a ceiling hanging that would make a fun project. My idea was for my 5th grade students to use Codeblocks to create simple shapes that could be strung together to make a fun mobile of sorts. My space has a power grid setup for my drop down power and I could see these bringing my makerspace to life. And it meant using brightly colored acrylic in the Glowforge!

I will be having each 5th grader come up with at least four shapes where they will be required to add areas for the fishing line to connect to the shapes, as well as cutouts to add dimension to the designs. Once they build the shapes, the first step is prototyping with cardboard to make sure the shapes were appropriately built.

I also love this project because the cutting time on the Glowforge doesn’t take very long. I look forward to seeing which colors the students chose!