Keynote, Sallye Coyle of Shopbot shared the story of the company – primarily her husband wanted/needed a tool to help him build a boat, and initially they intended to sell to garage hobbyists. As it turned out, they now help Boeing, NASA, communities, machine shops, schools, and self-employed folks design and manufacture parts.
Darlene Farris-LaBar‘s session, Empowering Creative Minds with 3D Printing for Art & Design, including gorgeous examples of her art and inspirations. She is a co-founder of East Stroudsburg University’s G3D Super Lab. She shared many lovely examples of pieces printed with a Stratasys full color, multi-material 3D printer – they are just awe-inspiring.
Next, Jennifer Grayburn and Veronica Ikeshoji-Orlati led a session, Remaking the Past: Teaching Art History and Material Culture Through 3D Printing. They talked about having students locate, analyze, and print monuments and other works of art and how the process is most important (similar to what Corinne shared yesterday).
My friend, Ian Klapper of City and Country School, led a session on Visualizing the Past Into the Present and Future. He talked about the constraints of space in a NYC independent school located in Greenwich Village causing him to integrate and bring things into the classroom rather than have the luxury of a designated “Makerspace” — I too am very familiar with this workaround. At C&C, 3D printing is primarily done in Grades 5 and 6, but Ian has been working with teachers to 3D print with younger students too. He shared projects including Viking chess pieces, Medieval wax seals, Mesopotamia cylinder seals, Islamic clay tiles, Renaissance architecture, game pieces, Lenape legends, and moveable type for C&C’s printing press. Three more resources shared at Ian’s session: Thingiverse’s Universal Connectors Kit, Reflow recycled filament, and Mcor ARKe 3D printer which uses paper rather than plastic to form models.
And finally, the last session I attended was an energetic and remarkable share by Chris Sweeney entitled, 3D Printing and Digital Fabrication in the Design Classroom. Chris shared tons of tips, ideas, and photos of student projects including TurtleArt, MakeMakey cardboard instruments, Community Chess pieces, prosthetic tools for a student with cerebral palsy, and more. He also mentioned algae filament, Trnio (a phone scanning app), and using rock tumblers to smooth and polish 3D prints. Chris’s slides from the session are here: https://schd.ws/hosted_files/construct3d2017/db/3D%20Printing%20and%20Digital%20Fabrication%20in%20the%20Design%20Classroom.pdf
After Chris’s session, I caught the last two minutes of Exploring 3D Design Software and Best Practices consisting of panelists Matthew Borgatti, Sean Charlesworth, Michael Curry, Darlene Farris-LaBar, Eric Schimelpfenig, and Laura Taalman and moderated by Matt Griffin of Ultimaker.
Because I can’t remember things like I used to, here are some links from Sarah O’Rourke King, Consumer Youth Marketing Manager at Autodesk, of sites and people I want to follow up on:
- Hip Hop Architecture and Brandnu Design http://brandnudesign.com/
- Ashoka for Social Change https://www.ashoka.org/en
- Creative Reaction Lab http://www.creativereactionlab.com/
- Sarah is also a big fan of Emily Pilloton and Christina Jenkins of Project H Design and Girls Garage. She spotted my Unprofessional Development tote bag and understood it’s awesomeness. #FearLessBuildMore
Finally, the ever-inspiring Corinne Takara suggested getting ideas and motivation from these sources:
- Brigham Young University’s Compliant Mechanisms Research Department https://compliantmechanisms.byu.edu/node
- Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering https://wyss.harvard.edu/
- MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab (headed by yesterday’s keynote, Skylar Tibbits) http://www.selfassemblylab.net/
Corinne also honored me with one of her mycelium lights – she even gave it to me in a plastic corsage box! I told her I would absolutely go to prom with her — luckily she laughed. 🙂
Karen Blumberg 