3D Printers making Math and Science Projects real

3D Printers

An extension to Mechanical Devices and 3D is to move towards practical applications of 3D geometry to make your design come to life.  3D printers are becoming ever more popular in schools across the country turning ones creativity into a creation. 3D printing goes beyond the build of a geometrical design, 3D printing allows for cross curricular applications. Business, technology, literacy, science and math can all be integrated in a classroom with the 3D printed model as the corner stone within the project. As for the math classroom one can create physical examples of anything that can be described mathematically with algebraic, boolean and trigonometric functions. 

Here's a link to an article by George Hart who is mentoring teachers in the use of 3D printing for Mathematics
http://georgehart.com/rp/3D-printing-for-math-classroom.html

"3D printing is a valuable tool for engaging mathematics students and providing them with motivation to master many technical topics in the math classroom. As the technology becomes less expensive and more ubiquitous, teachers in K-12 and college environments are gaining easy access to 3D printers which can be used for education. Most teachers are not familiar with this technology and its possible uses, so I have been leading hands-on workshops for mathematics teachers across the US and internationally, introducing them to the techniques needed to use consumer-level 3D printers (such as the Makerbot Replicator) to enrich a math classroom.

Software packages such as Mathematica can translate algebraic expressions into 3D forms that are then created as tangible, low-cost, plastic objects that students can hold in their hands, take home, and/or pass around the class. Workshop participants are given a series of progressively more complex design challenges and are also asked to come up with their own individual objects of interest to create. Each class ends with something that has never existed before printing on the 3D printer.  They introduce students to the creative side of mathematics and provide a powerful motivation for learning the details." 

Another example of 3D printers used for math and science is the following.

From a white paper from the corporation Stratasys

THE SCIENCE OF AERODYNAMICS

The forces of aerodynamics that act on an airplane in flight — lift, gravity, thrust and drag — can be difficult concepts for students to follow through plain lecture or text and images. But if they design and build gliders for themselves, they’ll begin to see how opposing forces balance and act on each other. Stratasys® created an online lesson guide available for teachers that will help them walk students through designing gliders and building them with a 3D printer. The curriculum includes leading questions to help students explore the most effective wing designs, determine the correct balance between strength for launching (and crashing the plane) and weight for gaining optimal flight time, and how to design the glider to minimize material waste. The lesson also includes design tips for printing glider parts. For example, the minimal wall thickness that can be reliably printed is 0.6 mm. For load-bearing parts, such as the connectors to which the wings are attached, the thickness should be over 2 mm. A four-minute video shows how the basic design of the glider works and walks the student through the use of wing covering material and adhesives to finish off the project. A downloadable zip file contains STL files that can be used as templates to help students kick off their computer-aided design efforts. Find this four-minute video (labeled as Episode 3) and other resources at www.stratasys.com/industries/education/resources.

file:///C:/Users/Benjamin/Downloads/White%20Paper%20-%20Seven%203D%20Printing%20Stem%20Projects%20to%20do%20with%20your%20class.pdf