We’ve often thought that 3D printers make excellent school projects. No matter what a student’s interests are: art, software, electronics, robotics, chemistry, or physics, there’s something for everyone. A recent blog post from [Prusa Research] shows how Johannes Kepler University is using 3D printing to teach math. You can see a video with Professor [Zsolt Lavicza] explaining their vision below.
Instead of relying on abstract 3D shapes projected on a 2D screen, GeoGebra, educational math software, creates shapes that you can produce on a 3D printer. Students can physically handle and observe these shapes in the real world instead of on a flat screen.
One example of how the 3D printer finds use in a math class is producing “Genius Square,” a multilevel tic-tac-toe game. You can find the model for that and other designs used in the classes, on Printables. Some prints are like puzzles where students assemble shapes from pieces.
Putting 3D printers in school isn’t a new idea, of course. However, machines have become much simpler to use in recent years, so maybe the time is now. If you can’t find money for printers in school, you can always teach robotics using some low-tech methods.
geometry, not math ;(
Geometry is math
no geometry is only parth of math
Either way, it’s maths.
The article ia really “teaching teachers how to use Prusa 3D printer so that they can teach school math”.
Joan Horvath and Rich Cameron have written several books about teaching math with 3D printers: https://www.makershed.com/collections/make-author-spotlights-joan-horvath-and-rich-cameron
This is commendable, and I am not trying to put any negative spin on what they do.
I am a teachers’ son, and both of my parents (now retired, btw – more than 55+ years each, teaching kids physics, astronomy, math) are quite skeptical we need full-blast proagressive introduction of “everything is computers” in the first place. Luddites they are not, both used computers when/how required, mastered things long before half of the HAD commenters were in kindergarten, that’s not the point.
Technology suppose to aid, and not distract (or introduce its own unrelated need for maintenance), and if it runs off on its own, demanding attention, then it is not helping with teaching, it is shifting focus AWAY from what’s being taught.
3D printing is awesome invention (I own a very nice 3D printer we use for all kinds of useful things), and visualizing things that are not easy to visualize is good, but when it becomes to nitty-gritty “how to use 3D printing”, then it is technician level teaching. It has its place, too, obviously, but it is extracurricular activity.
What we need more now is not more computers and not more 3D printing, that’s NOT why our US public education is one of the worst in the world, what we need is better education that prepares our kids for the future they will be facing. Technology is an aid, not an end in itself, that was my point.
(Spoiler – my kids went through the local mandatory public education “system” that left them mostly confused, but not ready for the life they are facing now. This alone sums up what’s needed – local education that would be good, not more investments into better faster computers or printers, priorities are off; btw, none of the local school have any proper workshops left – all were gutted and destroyed in the 1990s – that tells me nobody wants to teach our kids how to fix their own cars or houses, which is just plain sad).
You see sadness, I see opportunity to make money.
I made a simple jtag adaptor over parralel port with this ‘sugar’ (sucre in french):
http://www.zoobab.com/simple-jtag
Genius square is the name of one of the projects shown, but it is not the multi-level tic-tac-toe game.