Making Stuff to 3D Print

A lot of people have demonstrated interest in working with 3D printing technology. A great tool for creating designs is Sketchup. Like all tools, it requires some effort to learn in order to use well. The best place to start is by watching some of the Getting Started videos and doing the tutorials. Below is the first one.
  You will need to export your Sketchup file as an STL file in order to print it. You can do this if you install the Export STL extension. You will later slice your STL file. (This creates gcode.) This code tells the printer how to lay down the plastic.

In order for files to print, files need to be "water tight".  Use NetFabb Basic to repair files and make them watertight. (Video).

Printing with Sketchup Tips

More 3D tools from Autodesk

Poster Requirements - Q2

1. Create a poster with a useful message to be displayed in school
2. Size: To Be Decided
3. Colors: millions
4. Attractive (Pulls people in; is engaging)
5. To the point, clear and concise
6. Includes visual elements created in Illustrator.
7. Has good typography
8. Has good layout

Possible tools: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Camera

In comments below, briefly describe your poster idea:
1) Audience
2) Message
3) Text
4) Visual

Shepard Fairey

Maker Club - Getting Started

Welcome to the first-ever Maker Club at AIS Budapest. We'd like to let you know about some important "big ideas" regarding Maker Club:

• It's about making, being creative, exploring and having fun
• You're going to have a lot of freedom to make what interests you.  It's important to find something you really want to make and that you find interesting.
• There's a lot you will not understand or know how to do. That's okay since it's about figuring things out and problem solving.
• You will figure out how to do things using online tutorials, videos, Google searches, talking to people, etc.
• Things will not be perfect, especially in the beginning. Your ideas and what you make will improve as you keep working on them.
• Being persistent and not giving up easily is very important to your success.
• Making mistakes is part of the learning process. If you are not making mistakes you are probably not doing anything very challenging.
• Having said that, you do not want to make mistakes when it comes to safety. You will be shown how to use tools in a safe manner. You are required to use safety equipment like safety glasses when required. You need to ask for help if something seems unsafe or if you are not sure about some safety issue.

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 Don't forget to bring in your signed waiver form to the next meeting.

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You will want to start exploring ideas for something you want to make. You can get ideas from the following sites:

• Makezine
• Instructables
• Thingiverse
• Etsy

New Maker Club Starting Soon

Soon we'll be starting a maker club for middle school and fifth grade students. The goal is to give students opportunities to experience what it's like to create and problem solve using tools and materials that they would probably not encounter otherwise. Students will be given ideas about what kind of projects they might want to work on. Freedom and choice are important. Some examples of technologies we will be using are computer aided design (CAD) to be output to a computer controlled cutter or 3D printer, prototyping with Lego Mindstorms (programmable machines), working with Arduino micro-controllers and Raspberry Pi micro-computers, woodworking, sewing, etc.

With the removal of "shop class" and home economics classes from most college preparatory programs, students today have fewer opportunities to make, repair or tinker with the tangible world. A maker space is a great way to help students be creative and to experience real, authentic problem solving. Maker spaces give students a reason to develop their math, science, arts, tech and entrepreneurial skills through real-world application. Creating in these environments allows students to learn from one another and to see new possibilities. This is the first year we are doing this at AISB. No doubt, everyone involved will learn a lot, and in keeping with the the maker ethos, even when we fail, we will have learned what doesn't work.

Design Technology - Printing Out 3d CAD Files

Here are some images and videos of recent student work being printed out from 3D CAD files on some of our  new equipment. Students created these products using Sketchup, a computer 3d modeling software package. What you are seeing in the images below are the first versions, or first prototypes, of each item. The design process allows for rich feedback as students can now handle and use these items and make adjustments and changes as necessary. This is called rapid prototyping. It creates great feedback through tactile and real-use scenarios which can then be incorporated into subsequent, improved versions. This prototyping technique is different from traditional techniques where few prototypes are made, many of which are not very realistic.  3D printing enables quick, iterative product design and improvement in a way other technologies can't.

3D Printing Club Paves the Way

Last year's 3D printing club managed to pave the way for this year's Design Technology class. This group of students helped assemble our first 3D printer and pushed our knowledge of 3D printing to a new level. This year we are hoping to continue exploring 3D printing, CADesign and to be able to do more with this exciting technology.

Computer Aided Design (CAD)

We have just begun using CAD software (Sketchup) in order to design something useful and then print it using our 3D printers. (Learning Center)

Think of something smallish that you would like to design for 3D printing.  Some ideas are:

• a holder that allows a smartphone to be connected to a tripod
• tripod connectors like the one shown below (they get lost at school)
• a cable holder that keeps cables on a desk (projector cable, audio cable, power cable...)
• headphone hangers to put around classroom
• cardboard connectors like MakeDo

Vocabulary we'll be using:

1. faces (on surfaces in Sketchup)
2. x, y, and z axes
3. Push / Pull tool
4. Orbit tool
5. Follow Me tool
6. "healing" a surface in Sketchup
7. isometric view
8. solid (water tight)
9. coplanar

The final product.

It starts with an idea. And a lot of good measurements.

The original item

3D printing takes patience. Failures = learning.

Creating the design in CAD software.

Tech Deck Design Ideas

Students have recently completed designs for the soon-to-be painted tech deck in the middle school. They used Adobe Illustrator to create the main design and then used Photoshop to virtually put their design on the back of each bench. We have been talking about the importance of prototyping and how today's tools like Photoshop can help us get great feedback before committing a lot of time and money on the real thing.

Students will vote for their favorite design and it will then be painted with help from middle school art class students. Below you can see some of the designs:

Tech Deck rendering made with Sketchup CAD software

Tech Deck Paint Design

We need a cool design for the back of the tech decks.

Design requirements:

1. Use Adobe Illustrator to draw
2. 1176mm width by 1100mm height X 3 (There are three back surfaces on three benches)
3. Is interesting
4. Uses 3 colors only per bench with a light background
5. Does not use gradients
6. Has a technological look
7. Is not too hard to paint
8. Uses the Grid  in Illustrator
9. All three surfaces come together to make a coherent design

Poster Design Requirements

1. Create a poster with a useful message to be displayed in school
2. Size: tbd
3. Colors: millions
4. Attractive (Pulls people in; is engaging)
5. To the point, clear and concise
6. Include Brand if message requires it.
7. Has good typography
8. Has good layout

Possible tools: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Camera

Typography

Typography allows us to design with text.

In Illustrator we can convert text to paths. This allows us to play with the text and make something new and interesting.

In the example above, I used color as well as paths to make something new. Choose fonts which make your message stand out. A sans serif font above would not have been as good as one with a serif.

Try not to distort text by resizing it out proportion. The font designer did not intend the font to be squished or stretched.

In Illustrator, you can give text a fill as well as a stroke. These can be different colors. Most of the time, use a fill and no stroke. Strokes that are too thick will distort the font.

The text above is following a gentle curved path. It has a black stroke and yellow fill. It doesn't look very battle-like, does it?

Vocabulary to know:

font
sans serif
serif
kerning
leading

Graphic Design Intro

How do Photoshop and Illustrator differ? (Both are from Adobe)

Is one better than the other?

Look at what can be done with Illustrator: Flickr Vector Group

How are vector graphics (Illustrator) different than bitmap graphics (Photoshop)?

More differences video.

Vocabulary you need to know:

1. bitmap (raster)
2. vector
3. pixel
4. anchors (in Illustrator)
5. stroke (in Illustrator)
6. fill (in Illustrator)

File types you need to know about:

1. jpg or jpeg
2. PNG
3. GIF
4. .ai
5. .psd
6. TIFF

More Design Tech - Introduction

We'll be looking at the following videos and discussing them.