I had the opportunity to work with 10 of the ROI STEM Fellows Alumni. We met at the Loogootee HS Fab Lab. This was great because they got to visit another lab setup and talk about different ways of doing maker projects.
Everyone designed a laser cut nametag. We utilized cuttle.xyz for the design process (they now have free accounts for educators). I have a slideshow walking people through it. Loogootee has XTool P2S lasers. The XTool design space did something different with the colors that I had chosen…I didnt look closely (Brandy was working that since they are hers.) Glowforge and Lightburn separate “fill” and “stroke” then they separate all the colors into separate actions. Just from the quick glance i took, I think it only separated “fill” & “stroke”… but Brandy made it work
We also did 3D design with Tinkercad and printed on their Prusa MK4S. The goal was a board game piece with multiple shapes stacked and a hole or slot.
The final part of the day was working pieces of a Scale K-12 lesson, “Who Let the Dogs Out“. It is about designing & prototyping a dog park with a safety feature. So it means learning about circuits (battery & LED and copper tape = paper circuits), using a micro:bit, using a micro:bit to control a safety light and a gate (servo).
A couple of days later I went to visit a current STEM Fellow, Melanie at Shoals Elementary. She is new in her STEM position, having moved from a grade level classroom. We talked about how I could help, some project ideas and some resources for the digital fabrication tools they have. Since I was in the neighborhood, I stopped by the Mitchell JH Novus Lab to see how I could help them. They are having some issues with 2 of their 3D printers. After some test prints and hearing the extruder click often, we think it is under-extruding. We did not fix that yet. In the other printer I found 2 separat pieces of filament stuck in a feed/funnel component and could not get them out. It is an easily replaceable part…but when I removed it I ended up tearing the filament sensor ribbon cable, which is a little more involved replacement (more parts need removed). I ordered those 2 parts for them and will get back there when my calendar allows.
Leave a Reply