15 which is a long time it seems. I teach all of the design and tech classes from Grade

8 up through grade 12 and we've been using the 3D printers in all of our Grade 8, 9 and

11 classes. The up side for me with the 3D printer is that there's a difference in a

student being able to see their work on screen and being able to see that work printed off

and put into their hand. There's a different level of engagement, of excitement, and of

interest of doing their best in their project. It is really exciting to see their eyes light

up when their projects is on the printer being printed off and that from a teaching perspective,

you can't buy that. It's just fantastic. Probably our favourite project this year was with our

grade 9 class and we had them, we gave them a challenge to design and print a rubber band

powered race car and so that gave them a series of questions, series of problems that they needed

to come up with; was a bigger car better than a smaller one, what about wheel size, does

the width of the wheel matter, how are they going to get traction from the wheel into

the ground, how are they going to attach the wheel to the axel. It was lots of different

questions that were brought up that they were faced with that forced them to think and design,

and test and redesign, and that process was fantastic. When it came right down to

it, it lead to a really good conversation with the students about the learning is the process

not the end product. You know we had a conversation about the car that looks the best or goes the farthest,

isn't necessary the one you learn the most from, but rather the challenges that they were able

to overcome and the issues that they solved. That's where the learning happens and that was a

really positive and meaningful conversation to have with my students. I think it actually

made a difference for them in some respects. So this project by enlarge was probably my

favourite out of the year for our 3D printing work.

Hi, I'm Henry from Collingwood School. I teach Design and Tech, and Science, and Physics.

So this year we started a new project on 3D printing and it's been going well. Students

love it, I love it because they love it. So it's one of my favorite ones because I mean

I have a whole class of boys and which boy doesn't like flinging stuff across the rooms.

Basically the idea was to have them build these catapults that will swing erasers across

the room. So as they are making these, they are also learning about stuff about the printing

as well; how can they minimize print time, how to reduce the amount of plastic, whether

or not to print with support and if that's a good idea or not. So one thing they do learn

is also the angles and stuff like that. That's a great part about this project because I

have never done this and students know. So they, a lot of times they look from online

resources to see the best arm or the best length or how to put the best rubber band

for the catapult and that's where a lot of learning comes. So in terms of my favourite

project, I would say this is my favourite one by far and it's been great.

In science we use to have this unit on pressure and fluid velocity and said okay maybe we can incorporate

that with 3D printing and have them print their own car's with balloons so we started

with that. And as things grew on, we looked at everyday things that they can use to build

their projects. Some it was the rubber band power cars, recently the catapults with rubber

bands. So in terms of design, it's mainly giving them saying "oh hey we are building

this, building a car that's powered by rubber band." Initial reactions are like "oh what,

how do we build this?"Basically that's when thinking becomes. That's when they start thinking

about their designs so in that sense we usually let students build whatever they want. Great

thing is that they, the first one never works, and they find that out pretty quickly so that.

Then they go through iterations and that's where the design and learning really comes

in, is when they see what they need to learn in order to make it succeed. In terms of design

process, it's quite natural to give them a problem and have them think about it and then

having them create a solution for it. So that's how I approach it in terms of the way things work.

So far it's been a great experience.