Friday, February 6, 2015

Science Fair with 3D Printing and Augmented Reality!

It's about that time again.  This Thursday will be our school science fair.  Last year, I was so pleased to see 3D printing used as a tool in a number of the projects. Not because it was required, or a special 3D printing class, but because it was there and allowed students to create the objects they needed for a specific purpose.  This year is no different.

This year features:

1) Another 3D printed drone body.  Although, unlike last year's downloaded files, these parts were designed by 7th graders using TinkerCAD.  As an added bonus, the kids took advantage of their classmate's recent headway with ditto printing to speed the process along.

Perhaps equally impressive are the clamps one girl downloaded, printed and assembled for her use while building the drone.

making clamps

2) Pinhole camera (pic on its way!)

3) Hair straighteners - this was one of the more disturbing projects (visually!)  Using supposedly "real human hair" (from Amazon) this group was studying the effect of different straightening techniques on the strength of hair. They used heat, but also wanted to use magnetism and dry ice (hey, it's 7th grade), so they needed to custom design their own handles to hold the magnets and dry ice. For these ladies, it was their first time using TinkerCAD and the 3D printer.

4) Gliders - This group began by downloading files on Thingiverse to do some preliminary background research, but quickly moved to designing their own wings.  Starting off in TinkerCAD, they eventually decided to move to Fusion360.  The best part?  ONe boy taught HIMSELF how to use the 3D printer.  Because he could. :)

5) Insect maze (pic on its way!)

This year, we intend to include augmented reality into our traditional trifold boards, like last year. Unlike last year (when we had only heard of AR for the first time 10 days before the fair), we've had time to learn more about Aurasma in general and will be using Aurasma Studio, rather than the more expedient, but less flexible app method.

While we had hoped to master the process of creating 3D models (exusing Maya to incorporate into Aurasma (therefore allowing students to display v1 and v2, etc of their projects) we are happy to simply include student videos again.

We'll keep you posted!


  1. Love all the creations! What specific plastic material did you use for that hair straightener handle? ABS or PLA filament? I think it would be better if we use nylon filament since it has high heat resistance. What do you think?

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  3. Loved it. Some really good points in there. Cheers, have a great day
    printer 3d

  4. Wow, I am excited to see what's next for the team!