3D Printed Fidget Spinner STEM Lesson

 

If you worked in a school, in the spring of 2017, you know what a fidget spinner is. If you are reading this after the fidget spinner craze has passed, were on sabbatical in a cave, or work in some crazy pocket universe where all of the children were not obsessed with this thing you may not understand the full impact of this lesson. That’s okay, a Fidget Spinner STEM Lesson will still be useful.

Any time I happen to notice that a significant portion of my students are incredibly engaged with something, I want to know what it is. Once I know about it, I want to come up with a way to turn it into a lesson. When I worked in sales we called this borrowed rapport. Essentially, if you referred me to your friend they automatically have a bit higher level of trust in me because they already trust you.  In education the same holds true. It is far easier to get kids more excited about something they’re already excited about, than to create excitement from the ether. I also prefer whenever possible, to trick my students into learning while they think they are having fun. You can look at some of my other articles to see this philosophy illustrated.

Fidget Spinner STEM Lesson Standards

I had originally envisioned this lesson for my grade 4 students. After thinking about it though, I changed my opinion to it being more appropriate for my grade 6-8 students. As such, I have intentionally kept the standards general so they could apply across grade band.

• Math standards in your particular band can be anything having to do with measurement, engineering, and Geometry.
• For Science you will want to look at Energy & Motion, and Engineering.
• With State Pre-Engineering/Tech Ed Standards look specifically for anything relating to Computer Aided Design, Engineering Design Process, Manufacturing, or Advanced Technology.

 

Fidget Spinner STEM Lesson Materials & Equipment

• Tinkercad (or some other CAD Software).
• 3D Printer.
• Micrometer.
• 3 Roller Blade Bearings Per Student.
• Engineering Notebook.

 

Fidget Spinner STEM Lesson Overview

Prior to attempting this lesson students should be familiar with the operation of Tinkercad, as well as how to use the Micrometer. Students will be required to design and 3D print a fidget spinner with no fewer than three bearings. The total footprint of the design is up to you, but I’d recommend something in the neighborhood of a 6CM cross section with a 1CM height.  The design should be unique, well balanced, and aesthetically pleasing.

Fidget Spinner STEM Lesson Ideation

First, students will be given the specifications and a bearing. I’d suggest having students start by sketching some thumbnails in their engineering notebooks. Have them brain storm on paper. That way they begin to think like a designer.

They can certainly do internet research, but we are trying to simulate the actual design process of an actual product. At it’s core we are exposing our students to the world of toy design. What student could possibly resist such a tempting project? With this in mind keep it fun, and make it a little silly. Too often in classes where we try to stick to a rigid design process we lose track of the fun. Somewhere along the way some teacher or administrator thought that school could not be both rigorous, and fun at the same time. That individual was completely wrong. In reality, the more fun you have built in to your lesson the more rigor you can expect from your students.

Engineering Notebook Sidebar

I will certainly do a longer post on this at some point (in fact as soon as I finish this post I will be doing one on collaboration that covers this), but for now suffice it to say that there are a billion and a half ways to do engineering notebooks in an engineering classroom. I have only found one good method. Use graph paper, have kids take a picture of the page with their phone, and save it to a google drive folder. Again, more on this in a later post, but this will get you started.

Fidget Spinner STEM Lesson Prototyping

This is where things start to get super fun. First, students need to measure the diameter of the bearing with the Micrometer. Next, have the kids make a detailed drawing of their design on paper. Once they have a solid design in mind, they go to Tinkercad, and design the spinner digitally. By forcing this process, and letting students know they will be making Tinkercad designs you will be forcing them to keep a bit more grounded in reality than they may want. This is okay, and exactly what you want from them because the last part of the initial prototyping phase is production. In the production phase students will 3D print their prototype. Once they have printed their prototype they can iterate until it works & looks perfect.

Fidget Spinner STEM Lesson Extension

Once students have completed the above steps, and have a working design you could certainly end the lesson. Students who’ve done the above have already demonstrated mastery in designing a working prototype of a useful item. If however, you want to spend a bit more time on it the lesson can easily be expanded into an entrepreneurship one. In the extension students will need to conduct some market research of their sales demographic to find out what their customers want/need, will have to come up with a marketing plan, and will have to figure out production costs. Once they’ve done all of that they could even actually try selling a few depending on the availability of your 3D printer.

Fidget Spinner STEM Lesson Conclusion

When we teach students by allowing them the freedom to express themselves we find massive engagement. Students talk about their project outside of class. They will work on their own time, and will surprise you with just how far they will take something. Whether the design is a fidget spinner, or some other widget kids are into, we should always look for a way to borrow engagement. Additionally, with class times being reduced we need to keep our lessons educationally dense in order to keep our rigor high.

Since the 1980’s Technology Education or Industrial Arts has had this project of a research design, and manufacture something. This is certainly a valuable exercise in terms of entrepreneurship, but has historically suffered from a lack of realism or relevance. I’ve heard of classes designing everything from Sports Drinks to Sports Cars. In none of those cases have the students been able to actually make & sell their idea. There are obvious benefits in the above lesson of teaching engineering design, but there is also an opportunity for students to actually make something salable.

 

Makerbot Tips & Tricks: Get the Best From Your Tech

 

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I didn’t come to STEM education via the traditional routes. I mention this now because the post that follows is the culmination of three years of working with the Makerbot Replicator 5th Generation in my classroom. It showed up in a box, fully assembled, without anything resembling a manual. It had a quick start guide. That’s it. As such I really could have used a post covering Makerbot Tips. Aren’t you lucky that I’m here to give you some tips and tricks to make this incredibly expensive, powerful, learning tool work well for you, and your students.

Note: What follows is not a recommendation to purchase the described technology. Further, this is not an offer to support this technology. Before purchasing any 3D printer, or other technology please be certain that you have researched the various options available, and have a plan for how you will use it. The following post assumes you either already have a Makerbot Replicator 5th Generation, and are looking for some tips & tricks to help you along, or you are already buying one. This is what makes my life easier as an educator that uses this tech in my classroom. Your mileage may vary.

Makerbot Tips of Utmost Importance

Before your Makerbot even ships you need to begin maximizing your chances for successfully implementing this solution in your classroom. The best way to do that is to budget for the service contract. If you don’t purchase a service contract for this device, the support you get via the warranty is awful. However, the support you get with the service contract is pretty great. Roll the dice if you want to, but I would never buy one of these (or any other $3,000 piece of equipment) without the service contract.

Additionally, make sure you order an extra Smart Extruder to have on hand. In my experience you will go through 1-4 extruders per year, and as a teacher you can’t afford downtime. With a spare you can just swap out the part, and get back to printing. A note about the service contract though is that they only cover three extruders per year so, count on paying for any after that.

Makerbot Tips for Care & Feeding

Your Makerbot will treat you well if you treat it well. If you do not pay attention to its basic needs it will die on you when you need it most. Job One for a long, and happy life with your Makerbot is understanding the leveling feature. On the Makerbot Printer you will see a menu of options. In order to level your build plate you will select “Settings” followed by “Calibration” followed by “Assisted Leveling” (this is how it is found as of this writing). In order to have the greatest number of successful prints you need to run this feature any time you change filament, remove the build plate, or have a filament jam. Once you select Assisted Leveling you just need to follow the on screen prompts.

Job Two is proper maintenance of your build plate tape. This is a largish section of painter’s tape that covers the glass of your build plate. Any time this “tape” gets ripped up you need to change it. Some people will tell you to use any old painters tape you can get at the hardware store. That’s probably fine, but I use the stuff Makerbot sells. It isn’t that expensive, and seems easier to use as there is no cutting involved. However you keep the build plate covered, you want to make sure that there are no bumps, bubbles, or wrinkles in the tape. Remember that this device has tolerances of down to .1 MM, it doesn’t take much of a wrinkle to mess things up.

Makerbot Tips for Getting the Most Life Out of Your Extruder

There are a couple of good tips for minimizing the number of extruders you use each year. In my classroom the 3D printer runs every day for most of the year. After a good deal of experimentation I am only going through 2-3 extuders per year which equals out to about $450.00 per year when my service contract runs out. The main way to keep the number of extruders you need per year to a minimum is to limit the number of times the hot end heats up, and cools down. The way to achieve this is to use the “add” feature in the Makerbot Desktop software, and to print small.

The add feature, found in the file menu or by clicking Ctrl+Shift+O allows you to add multiple files to a given print. What this means in practice is that instead of printing one file at a time, you can print multiple files and maximize your available build plate space. The fewer times you need begin a print, the fewer times your hot end will heat up and cool down which will make it last longer.

Printing small, involves what types of projects you have your students work on. Ideally, whatever project you have them doing will allow you to reasonably print a whole class worth of designs in one run. In my case I focus on Model Rocket Nose Cones I have also used snowflakes, and Christmas ornaments. In any of those cases I have been able to fit 10-20 unique designs on my build plate. It makes for a longer print, but minimizes heating and cooling.

Makerbot Tips for Limiting Filament Costs

One of the biggest frustrations most people have about the Makerbot is that you have to use their proprietary filament. It so happens that the filament they sell is on the expensive side, and the options are really limited to various colors of PLA. As such, it helps to limit how much you use. My first year teaching with my Makerbot I went through 16 rolls of Filament. After figuring out a trick or two that dropped down to 4.

First, I started printing hollow. This is achieved by changing the settings in the Makerbot Desktop software to having an infill of 0%. Depending on the specific project you may or may not be able to do this, but in my case it works great. Second, I started printing in low resolution. Low resolution makes the layers .3MM as opposed to .1mm. Fewer layers means less filament. Again, you need to figure out what will work for your particular lesson here, but with my model rocket nose cones this works perfectly. Third, don’t print things that require supports. In my experience using supports on the Makerbot is a recipe for trouble anyway, but no supports equals less filament as well.

Fin

I love 3D printing as a learning tool, but I have found that it can be frustrating for many teachers. It also causes me massive amounts of stress when I am giving a workshop on 3D printing, and I find a printer in disrepair. It bums me out because I know that once it starts breaking down it is destined for a storage closet, and that is a crying shame. Like any technology 3D printers take some getting used to, but once you understand it intricacies it is really hassle free.

Thanks for reading my Makerbot Tips article. If you found this article helpful please spread it around. If you want to read more about specific lesson on 3D printing poke around a bit on the rest of the site. Finally, if you would like to receive regular updates when we post a new article (and noting else from us) sign up below. Thanks again for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

Lesson: SuperStar Rocketry 2 – 3D Printing Lesson

When I first started teaching I got offered an incredible budget to set up my STEM program. The only caveat was that I buy a 3D printer with some of the money. The challenge however, was that I’d never heard 3D printing before, let alone how to design a 3D Printing Lesson. What I needed was something simple, engaging, adaptable, and quick to learn. I did internet research, and though there are some good resources now, at the time there really weren’t. Instead I designed my own curriculum for grade 7 & 8. After twelve or so refinements I came up with the 3D Printing Lesson you’re about to read.

The below 3D Printing Lesson assumes that you already know how to use your 3D printer, and are familiar with model rocketry in general. As of this posting, I don’t have a recommendation for a 3D printer. That said, Make Magazine does a great annual article evaluating what’s out there. Depending on which make & model printer you buy, training may be available from the manufacturer. Alternatively there are lots of how to articles, and videos online. One day I hope to buy a kit, and make my own printer. When/if that happens I will document the process. If you are unfamiliar with Model Rocketry though, I have good news. Why you should use model rocketry is covered here, and Lesson 1 in the series is here. This lesson will refer back to lesson 1 often so, give it a read if you haven’t already.

In case you haven’t read my other Lesson posts it is worth noting that my style of writing a lesson plan isn’t what you may be used to. I write out the plan in a manner that is meaningful to me as a teacher. The first thing I typically need to know is what materials I need, followed by what to teach, followed by how to teach it, and finally the applicable standards. Here we go!

3D Printing Lesson: Introduction.

In this lesson students design several model rocket nose cones based on established shapes using computer aided design software. Students print out each nose cone, equip a model rocket with it, launch the rocket, and record the data. The same rocket body is used for each launch to protect the integrity of the data. This lesson is designed for use in grades 7 or 8, and takes approximately 1 academic quarter the way I teach it.

I have my students build rockets from scratch, but if you use kits this lesson could take less time. This lesson could also take less time if you give students measurements to work with. I ask my students to develop size specs on their own. This lesson could certainly be used as a performance task for performance based assessment. I also teach this lesson along with Rocketry Lesson 1 as opposed to separating them in order to save time.

3D Printing Lesson: Materials.

• 3D Printer & Supplies.
• Rocketry Supplies (see Lesson 1).
• A computer (Chromebooks work fine), or tablet for each student.

 

3D Printing Lesson: What to Teach.

• Computer Aided Design.
• 3D printing.
• The Iterative Design Process.
• The Use of Data in Design Decisions.
• Everything from Rocketry Lesson 1.

 

3D Printing Lesson: How to Teach

If you are using kits, begin with constructing the kits. If you are doing a from scratch build to a certain set of instructions like I do, you can start with that. In either case, while construction is happening, I go over the Parts of a Model rocket from lesson 1, but as I am having my students design the nose cone for the model rocket, I go into greater detail on the nose cone as shown below.

I apologize for the quality of the drawing, clearly I teach Tech Ed not Art. Since we are creating the nose cones we need to have a shared vocabulary when discussing a given design. When we get to the actual design phase I will give my students some specifications for measurements, but for now they just need to know what the various parts are called.

Baseline Launch or CAD?

Once you have a shared vocabulary established, and rockets assembled you can go one of two ways. You could put some standard nose cones on the rockets, have a launch, and record data for a baseline.  I take the other tack,  which is to begin with the use of the Computer Aided Design tool. Great News! If you use the tool I use (which is free, web based, and functions well on Chrombooks) called TinkerCad, it comes with a whole suite of fantastic tutorials that guide your students through the various aspects of the software. For this 3D printing lesson you can allow students time in class to work through the tutorials, assign it as homework, or do a combination of the two.

I have my students do the tutorials in Basics, Accessories, Gadgets, and Miniatures. One word of caution here, if your students are under the age of 13 setting up an account takes parental approval. The site uses a question about birth date to verify age when an account is set up, but doesn’t do any other type verification.

Design

Once you & your students have established a shared vocabulary, learned how to use CAD software, and have built rockets you can begin to design nose cones. Prior to beginning the actual design of their first nose cone I ask my students to research model rocket nose cone shapes. I am trying to get them to find conical, ogive, parabolic, and blunt shapes. At this point I ask them to make a prediction about which nose cone will give the rocket the highest altitude. Once they have done their research I give my students a set of digital calipers, and have them get the interior diameter of their rocket air-frame. The should also measure the exterior diameter. Their first assignment is to design a Conical Nose Cone.

Nose Cone Design Requirements

• The nose cone must fit snugly into the rocket air-frame.
• The nose cone must have a shock cord mount.
• The height of the cone is twice the exterior diameter of the body tube (2D).
• The total height of the full nose cone including body tube mount is three times the exterior diameter (3D).
• The shoulder will measure 2 millimeters.

 

In all likelihood, your students will need to go through 2-3 iterations just to get the nose cone to fit inside the air-frame correctly, and meet the specifications. Here is one I designed for the project. See the Pro Tips below to learn from my experience.

Design & Printing Pro Tips:

• Print the shock cord mount beside the cone & superglue it onto the bottom.
• Make an indent in the bottom of the cone for the shock cord mount to sit in.
• In your 3D printing Software, there should be an add feature to add several additional objects to your print, use it.
  • If you follow this pro tip assign students a number or letter to have as a unique identifier such as the “X” on my example nose cone.
• Make certain to have your students name the files in a descriptive way.
  • For instance, if the class is grade 7 quarter 1, the student’s name is John Smith, and the nose cone is conical I have them name the file: G7Q1ConicalNCJS.
• Teach students how to use the Align Tool in TinkerCad so you can have everything centered.
• Students will save themselves heartache if they fully understand the Ruler Tool in TinkerCad.
• For each design after the first they copy (Ctrl+C) & paste (Ctrl+V) their body tube, and shock cord mount assembly from the successful conical design. Those two features don;t change from cone to cone.
• When printing nose cones set the initial fill setting to 0.00%. This gives you a very light nose cone.
  • You can expand this lesson by messing with the fill, and seeing how much the weight of the nose cone changes with the fill percentage. You can further expand it by seeing how much nose cone weight effects altitude.

 

Next Steps

Once you’ve got conical nose cones that fit snugly into the students rockets you’re ready to move on. Schedule a launch, launch rockets, collect data, and go over that data as a class. I go into more detail on both data collection, and expansions in Lesson 1. After the first launch move to a different nose cone shape, and do as many launches as you can. The more launches your class does, the more interesting your data will be. For comparison, the most launches I have achieved within a quarter was 3.

Standards:

• All Standards covered in lesson 1.
• Future Tech from 3D printing.
• CAD introduction from TinkerCad.
• Additional math standards based on the calculations you have your students perform.

 

Expansion, Assessment, & Conclusion

I have expanded this lesson by complicating the nose cones in various ways. One good way to complicate the design of a nose cone includes eliminating the square shoulder in favor of a parabolic shoulder. One way to complicate the data, and analysis of a launch is to include meteorological data. The data can be further complicated by adding speed, and velocity calculations. This lesson really is almost infinitely expandable with a bit of creativity.

To assess this unit I have posed questions relating to a fictional rocket launch in short answer form. If you are working towards performance based assessment, you can give your students a design challenge with a goal of highest, or lowest altitude as an assessment.

Have found this lesson useful? If so, please use the social media to share it with as many teachers as you know. If you would like to keep up to date with new STEM lessons, research, learning tools, and book reviews please sign up for updates.

 

Top Five STEM Learning Tools Wishlist

One of my greatest mentors in STEM told me a learning tools story soon after we met. He told me about his first teaching position, and one of his own mentors. The head of his department took him into the storage room, and showed him a set of 30 Microscopes. When my mentor said “How did you get all these?” his mentor replied “One or two at a time over the course of a 20 year career”.

Education is a marathon, not a sprint, don’t be afraid to take your time. The learning tools below are fantastic! They are also expensive, and if you read this post not necessary for a strong STEM lesson.

Below is a “Wishlist” of the top STEM learning tools as of the date of this posting. These are the tools to aim for when you ask for extra money, or run a Donors Choose Campaign. If you are exceptionally lucky, and get a lot of funding to start or improve a STEM program you can get several at once. However, if you didn’t win the funding lottery try to buy a little each year.

Some of what I mention below I currently use in my classroom, some I have plans to get in the future, and still others are “dream” tools. Regardless of whether I have it now, am working towards getting it, or simply wish for it, I have a plan for how it will be used. As I mentioned in another article Content Drives Technology.

1)  3D Printer

A 3D printer is hands down the best STEM tool ever invented. It allows educators to customize their curriculum by adding design, and engineering components seamlessly. Almost regardless of the lesson you are teaching, you can integrate 3D printing technology seamlessly. In this blog I will be detailing my own lessons that utilize 3D printing, and design to give you inspiration.

Just check under 3D Printing Lessons (As of this post I haven’t added any yet, but plan on it within the next several days). Depending on your specific needs, skills, and budget these can be purchased for anywhere form $500.00 TO $5,000.00 (or more) so, make sure you research 3D printers very well before buying. I will post some articles about 3D printers, and specifically the ones I have used under the category Product Evaluations (again, I haven’t posted any yet).

2) Lego Mindstorms Ev3

Though there are several platforms available in the marketplace I recommend this one for two reasons. First, it’s the only one I have personal experience with. Second, they allow for data collection, and analysis  with their education version. Though other platforms are similar in that you can program them with a block based language, and have click together hardware for building, I haven’t seen any other that come native with data tools. Lego is also the oldest, and as such there are a ton more resources available than I have seen for other robotics platforms. I use them to teach intro programming, intro mechanical engineering, and advanced programming.

AS the blog progresses I will be posting my lessons, as well as the resources I have used to the blog eventually under the Ev3 Lessons category, but haven’t yet. There will also be posts on here about how to use Ev3 because it can be a bit daunting at first. It is also important to note that you don’t need to shoot for the moon right away. Try starting out your purchasing with an idea of a 4 to 1 ratio of students to kits, you can work over time to reduce that to 2 to 1, but I wouldn’t go down to 1 to 1 with grade 5 and 6 which is where my robotics program is offered. Core kits are around $400.00, and Expansion Kits are around $100.00 each.

3) Raspberry Pi

These little computers can do so much for your STEM curriculum. Not only can you teach coding, physical programming, Linux, and circuitry, but you can use the Pi itself for a wide variety of design tasks. I have seen them used as a controller  for everything from weather stations to cafeteria signage, web servers, and even Minecraft Servers. Really, anything that requires some manner of electronic control can use a Pi as its brain. It is also a fantastic next step after getting your students comfortable with block based programming like the programming found in Lego Mindstorms Ev3, App Inventor 2, or Scratch.

I will be posting lessons for this under the Rapsberry Pi Lessons category, but haven’t yet. The big advantage to using the Pi is that the computer itself is under $40.00. You will need keyboards, monitors, mice, and peripherals, but with a lot of these extras can be found in storage closets in most public schools.

4) Andriod Tablets/Smart Phones

I love this tool for many reasons. The first, and best reason is MIT App Inventor 2. This tool alone (which is free) allows your students to be able to apply their school work directly to their lives by making fully functioning Android Apps. The most common question I get from students in my school since I started has been “Mr. T, can you show me how to make Apps?”. After discovering MIT App Inventor 2 I can finally tell them that I can. App Inventor 2 is so amazing that there are even a whole curriculum worth of video tutorials that teach you (and your students) how to use it. Since it’s free there are also a TON of online resources for project ideas, and help using it.

As if that weren’t enough of a reason I have also been using tablets in my classroom to document my students work. Again, I will go into exactly how I have done this in a later post, but haven’t gotten to it yet. Android tablets seem to start at around $100.00 if you can’t get phones or tablets donated.

5) LASER Cutter

This is the only STEM learning tool listed in this article that I don’t currently have in my classroom. I list it here because it it almost as amazing as a 3D printer, and if you can combine the two you can do just about anything. These also seem to start at about $5,000.00 as of the time of this writing.

LASER cutters are computer controlled, and are used to cut flat objects. Depending on the specifications of the machine you have they can cut anything from cardboard to wood, metal, and plastic. I like them because they are a natural compliment to my 3D printer.

 

I hope you have found the above list useful in your purchase planning. If you have other ideas of fantastic STEM learning tools, or how you use them please feel free to pop on over to the Contact page, and let me know!