Mastering 3D Printing in the Classroom, Library, and Lab

Learn how to manage and integrate the technology of 3D printers in the classroom, library, and lab. With this book, the authors give practical, lessons-learned advice about the nuts and bolts of what happens when you mix 3D printers, teachers, students, and the general public in environments ranging from K-12 and university classrooms to libraries, museums, and after-school community programs.

Take your existing programs to the next level with Mastering 3D Printing in the Classroom, Library, and Lab. Organized in a way that is readable and easy to understand, this book is your guide to the many technology options available now in both software and hardware, as well as a compendium of practical use cases and a discussion of how to create experiences that will align with curriculum standards.

You'll examine the whole range of working with a 3D printer, from purchase decision to curriculum design. Finally this book points you forward to the digital-fabrication future current students will face, discussing how key skills can be taught as cost-effectively as possible.

What You’ll Learn

• Discover what is really involved with using a 3D printer in a classroom, library, lab, or public space
• Review use cases of 3D printers designed to enhance student learning and to make practical parts, from elementary school through university research lab
• Look at career-planning directions in the emerging digital fabrication arena
• Work with updated tools, hardware, and software for 3D printing

Who This Book Is For

Educators of all levels, both formal (classroom) and informal (after-school programs, libraries, museums).

About the Authors

As an engineer and management consultant, Joan Horvath has coordinated first-of-a-kind interdisciplinary technical and business projects, helping people with no common vocabulary (startups, universities, small towns, etc). work together. Her experience as a systems engineer has spanned software development, spacecraft flight operations, risk management, and spacecraft/ground system test and contingency planning. As an educator, Joan’s passion is bringing science and technology to the non-specialist in a comprehensible and entertaining way that will stay with the learner for a lifetime. As an educator, Joan’s passion is bringing science and technology to the non-specialist in a comprehensible and entertaining way that will stay with the learner for a lifetime.

Rich Cameron is a cofounder of Pasadena-based Nonscriptum LLC. Nonscriptum consults for educational and scientific users in the areas of 3D printing and maker technologies. Rich (known online as "Whosawhatsis") is an experienced open source developer who has been a key member of the RepRap 3D-printer development community for many years. His designs include the original spring/lever extruder mechanism used on many 3D printers, the RepRap Wallace, and the Deezmaker Bukito portable 3D printer. By building and modifying several of the early open source 3D printers to wrestle unprecedented performance out of them, he has become an expert at maximizing the print quality of filament-based printers. When he's not busy making every aspect of his own 3D printers better, from slicing software to firmware and hardware, he likes to share that knowledge and experience online so that he can help make everyone else’s printers better too.