Gone are the days when students would create Valentine’s Day mailboxes from shoeboxes, construction paper, doilies and glitter to share cards and candy with their peers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use the upcoming holiday to teach basic principles of design and engineering.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, we’ve created a quick list of projects you can teach in a single lesson (or two) this week to get your students excited about STEAM!
Teach the advantages of 3D printing for interlocking parts with a gear heart.
Gears are one of the basic principles of engineering. A great way to introduce students to gear systems is with a simple shape that demonstrates several gears – or cogs – in action.
From keychains to pendants, Thingiverse has a plethora of free downloads for gear hearts. One of our favorites is the gear heart that resembles common screwless cube gears. There’s a new design on Thingiverse this year that uses snap pins that make the heart easier to assemble than past iterations of this design.
[one_fourth valign=”top” animation=”none”]
[/one_fourth]
[one_half valign=”top” animation=”none”]
[before_after type=”smooth” before_src=”/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/HeartGear1.jpg” after_src=”/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/HeartGear2.jpg” width=”300″ height=”200″]
[/before_after]
[/one_half]
[one_fourth_last valign=”top” animation=”none”]
[/one_fourth_last]
This is a great project to accompany Unit 5 and Unit 6 of the Stratasys 3D Printing Curriculum, which explores gear system characteristics and forces and how to convert 2D drawings to 3D models. It also focuses on the bigger picture, offering lessons on the advantages and limitations of 3D printing of gear systems as well as the overall relevancy of gears in the 21st century.
Focus on the finishing process with a customized heart gift box.
Makerbot has created candy-heart inspired gift boxes that can be used to help bring the “Art” into STEAM education.
Printing these boxes on a Makerbot or another hobbyist level printer is a quick, easy way to demonstrate the possibilities of 3D printing, but we urge you to consider this project for a professional level system if your school has one so that students can focus on the finishing process for 3D printed parts.
For FDM printers, like a uPrint, students can practice both sanding and painting the part to their liking. For PolyJet 3D printers, the parts already have a smooth surface right out of the printer, so the finishing process simply involves painting the parts with off-the-shelf acrylic paints and lacquers.
If you’d like to go a more traditional manufacturing route with a lesson that incorporates CAD/CAM software and CNC machining instead of 3D printing, check out our tutorial on Creating a Custom Box of Chocolates for Your Valentine.
There are several other 3D printed projects you can consider for Valentine’s Day, like custom jewelry, vases for bouquets of flowers, or other small tokens of affection. Challenge your students to come up with their own designs. The lesson? With 3D printing, the possibilities are endless.
