Define > Dissect > Design = 3D Print Using MinecraftEDU

Students at Adams Middle School were given a life-like challenge to modify various puzzles with very small pieces for a child with a visual impairment. CTE Teacher, Mrs. Sheila Greene, wanted her students to practice an engineering skill called mechanical dissection of an object to understand an object's detailed design.

To modify the puzzle, you first have to mechanically dissect the layers of the puzzle. The first step into dissection is to isometrically draw all of the pieces of the puzzle on graph paper for accuracy to get an understanding of the 2D layers.  Jeremy F. said, “I like how I can see my mistakes, not to mention how this helps me in robotics and computer science.” 

 

Students documented the following in their journal during the investigation:

• Steps for how you assemble and disassemble the toy.
• Multiview sketch of each puzzle piece.
• Fully dimensioned sketch of the puzzle pieces

“This type of learning is preparing me to become a mechanical engineer,” said Jonathan F. 

This 2021-2022 school year NISD purchased Minecraft Education Edition for teachers and students to integrate into any content area.  Minecraft Education Edition is a game-based learning platform that promotes creativity, collaboration and problem-solving in a digital environment.  Common Sense Media states about Minecraft EDU, “Minecraft EDU is an excellent tool to engage students in learning, collaboration, and critical thinking and is now more accessible than ever to teachers.” 

To bring real world connections to the project, Mrs. Greene challenged her students to use digital tools to design larger puzzle pieces that will be printed on the 3D printer. Students needed to use their math and thinking skills to tinker with the X, Y, and Z axes to get the model placed into the build area

Being that Minecraft is new to NISD, Mrs. Greene did not know how to execute the program, but after a conversation with one of her expert students, Ayden, he volunteered to create a video tutorial and teach the class.  

 Click Image Above for Ayden’s Tutorial

As Ayden showed students how to print their work, Evan T. circulated among students helping them with Minecraft settings and block placement.  Now students in Robotics 1 are also using what they learned from Ayden and Evan and other student experts to create Minecraft-themed decorations to 3D print for their pull-toy mechanism.  Mrs. Greene said, “it is so cool to see students teaching each other and figuring out solutions together -- that’s real world collaboration and skill-building that increases their confidence and their trust in each other at the same time.”

 At the end of the experience, students will print their images on the Dremel 3D Printer. Check out some of their work below:

All of the NISD Minecraft for Education resources can be found here.  Feel free to contact your campus Instructional Technologist to answer any questions you might have. 

Robots to the Rescue! - A Virtual Tournament

 

COVID-19 forced many events to either be cancelled or postponed over this past year. The Northwest ISD Instructional Technology team did not want students to miss out on showcasing their learning as in the previous 9 years. This year, we got creative and hosted a virtual edition of EXPO 2021 with the fitting theme “Coming Together as One.” In conjunction with the traditional EXPO event, the past 3 years, we have hosted a face to face district wide robotics tournament sponsored by the Northwest Education Foundation. COVID also forced our tournament to be reinvented to a VIRTUAL robotics edition. 

With the goal of inspiring younger students to pursue engineering in high school, the competition challenges were developed in a pre-COVID world for the VEX and Mindstorm EV3 robots. The challenges were based on real life scenarios and were designed to be judged as a face-to-face tournament by the REACH Robotics teams at Eaton High School with their sponsor, Mr. William Gilbert. Ms. Rene Egle, an Instructional Technologist in Northwest ISD, who leads an annual TechnoCamp and the Robotics Competition at our district EXPO, took two months to tweak the format to a virtual robotics edition. This challenge was differentiated for the younger grades using the Ozobots and Dash robots.

Natalie Spann, Library Media Specialist, at Lance Thompson Elementary stated, "The whole process sets students up for success and discovery. It was truly inspiring to see student curiosity and wonder contribute to such amazingly authentic products and learning outcomes. We can’t wait for next year!"

"I really liked this years remote format to the robotics competition. The real world problem gave students connections to how robotics and STEM projects can prepare them for future careers. We had 3rd through 5th graders involved with three different robots. The format this year allowed me to observe teams and see our learners grow in their technical thinking. I also feel this process gave teams more time and depth to their teamwork skill development.  I do think the project had many layers outside of just building a robot. Students had to take notes and reflect on their thinking. Teams had to do lots of problem solving using coding to meet the set parameters of the challenge," said Sara Jones, Library Media Specialist at Justin Elementary. 

Katie Delgado, 3rd grade sponsor from Sendera Ranch Elementary stated, "It was so fun watching the team work together to problem solve and beat challenges.  I loved watching them cheer each other on."

The NISD IT team has gotten such good feedback from both the sponsors and students! They are loving the challenges and we will be repeating this format again next year.

The Houston Deluge tournament synopsis: Hurricane Gilbo has flooded Houston, downing power lines, stranding citizens, and littering the city with debris.  Robots are sent into this dangerous environment to clean up the mess, control the flood waters, and save the humans.   

This type of STEAM competition has inspired 75 teams both elementary and middle school students to learn coding, engineering, and collaborative problem-solving in a real-world disaster scenario. Other elements of the project include an engineering design website, self-scoring rubrics, peer evaluations, and judges interviews that transform this project into a cross-curricular STEAM challenge where students and learn future-ready skills, work with technology, and become more effective communicators in a rigorous and relevant student-driven project environment. 

Andy from the Sendera Ranch team stated, "While working on this project, I learned I am good at persevering because when I couldn't get this one pencil I kept trying and trying then, I finally got the pencil.  Another reason is that when the robot got stuck I finally got it free!"

Fourth grade students Karsyn and Kenly from Lance Thompson said, "What at fun experience, getting to know new people and figuring out how the technology works while making it your own." "This was a fun, and creative experience, deigning cityscapes, but also a challenging one, learning to build a robot; we learned that teamwork is the best way to succeed." 

"Robotics and the tasks of this tournament are profoundly challenging every step of the way, yet students love the rigor and enthusiastically seek out the knowledge they need to achieve mastery.  This is a STEAM education activity with higher level learning that combines with creativity!" said Mrs. Shelia Greene, PLTW educator, from Adams Middle School.   

“Robotics just may be the most perfect instructional approach currently available. It offers classroom activities that teach high-value STEM content as well as opportunities to powerfully address ELA Common Core Standards. In fact, there are connections to robotics across the full spectrum of the curriculum. Robotics is also a highly effective way to foster essential work skills like collaboration, problem solving and project management."  Mark Gura writes in a blog post from Edutopia

Campus entries for the virtual tournament were due May 7, 2021.  The REACH Robotics team from Eaton High School are in the process of judging all the videos and engineering design websites.  View NISD Post Here 

We would like to thank our awards sponsors again this year.  The Northwest ISD Education Foundation.  

Breaking Bridges... All in the name of Science!

Tenth grade students enrolled in Engineering Design apply engineering concepts to design, build, and test model bridges. Students use two specific tools in their design process, one to help with the design process (before building the bridge), and one to test the structural integrity of the bridge (after building the bridge). Before bridge building begins, students use West Point Bridge Designer to "model, test, and optimize a steel highway bridge, based on realistic specifications, constraints, and performance criteria" (source).

(Image source: West Point Bridge Designer website.)

Students then construct their model bridges using balsa wood and glue. After construction is complete, students test the strength of the bridges by applying force using a Pitsco Structure Tester. The software attached to the instrument records the force applied so students can record the data as part of their observations. 

"Breaking" a bridge using the Structure Tester.

Software monitors & records force applied to the bridge. (This bridge peaked at 33 pounds.)

Students work together to test the structural integrity of their model bridge.

Noah, a student participating in the project, describes the process:

"We are testing to see how much force the bridge can take before it breaks. This will help us find a weakness. My team's bridge broke at 22 pounds, so we're going to modify our bridge. We could do this without technology but we would have to run a lot more tests to break it to test all the tension points to test how much force it can take." 

Video of bridge breaking (from STEM Academy Twitter)

Some students turned the activity into a friendly competition, seeing which bridge could withstand the most force before breaking. The sound of cracking of balsa wood never elicited so much excitement! 

Diversity in Design - 3D Models

The role of an architect is quite diverse. They have to be imaginative and creative and  have a vantage point that is both big picture and focused on attention to small detail.

Students in Mr. Taylor's Architecture Design class were given the task of creating a 3D model of a residence using Autodesk Revit. In addition to recreating a residence, students had to recreate all of the necessary views for a set of construction plans including a floor plan, elevations, section views, detail plans, and schedules. Students decorated the houses using furniture that they downloaded form revitcity.com. The final step was creating an animated walkthrough of the house to show a fully decorated residence.

John said that he learned a lot from this project and was able to build on what he learned in Principles of Architecture to recreate this project using new software. John stated that he enjoyed that fact that "Mr. Taylor gave us freedom to decorate and add elements that appealed to us".

While reflecting on this project, Melanie shared that she initially struggled with this project because she didn't want t learn a new software "Once Mr. Taylor walked us through the process of creating a set of plans, it made more sense and I was open to the idea of learning REVIT. I am so glad I did!"

3D printer makes student-designed products come to life

Having a classroom 3D printer is not only cool, it is technology which can truly transform student learning. An example of such a transformation is the Product Design and Development Project, conducted by STEM Academy Seniors in Mr. Jim Brown's Engineering IV class at Northwest High School. Given the Driving Question, "How can we design and develop a product that will satisfy a consumer need?", students worked in design teams to apply the product design and development process, along with the engineering design process, to design, create, and present a product prototype that will satisfy a consumer need. Using new product development stages, students evolved their ideas into physical prototypes using the 3D printer. In true STEM Academy fashion, at the conclusion of the project, students presented their prototypes to a panel of industry experts for authentic, real-world feedback.

Image source: http://store.makerbot.com/replicator2

The integration of technology in this project was not only to create their final products, but also in many steps throughout the project. For example, students used Nepris to video conference with TXS Industrial Design personnel, Excel Gantt charts for effective project management, electronic Pugh Charts for product concept selection, and SolidWorks 3D design software (a common software used in university Engineering programs) for digital product design. All these tools were used to allow students to collaborate, work as a team, meet deadlines, justify product design decisions, and create product designs that could be sent to the MakerBot 3D printer. Only then could the students' designs come to life.

Examples of student products

Bullet Buddy
A pencil for people who like to stand out in a crowd, the Bullet Buddy is the perfect ammunition  for the professional.  Convenience in a small container, it comes with a big eraser for the error-prone, a pocket clip for mobile storage convenience, and a built-in sharpener.

Link to complete Bullet Buddy student presentation materials is HERE. 

"We had to apply our knowledge of SolidWorks, a program that allows us to make components for the 3D printers. Similar to AutoCAD chamfering and filleting, you can mold the object however you want to." -Tucker Chaka, Bullet Buddy Design Team Member 

"What engineers do is make products better. Having this technology with 3D printers and the SolidWorks platform lets us to break down components to see how they work and improve upon them. Without technology, we would not have been able to do the project." -Christian Thomas, Bullet Buddy Design Team Member

Swirly Fork
The Swirly Fork was created to make the eating of noodles easier on the consumer.  The fork works by spinning when you run your fingers down the side of the fork.

Link to complete Swirly Fork student presentation materials is HERE. 

Z Case
Too many things to hold? Losing all your stuff? We have just the thing for you! The Z case can hold your stuff, reduce the amount, and protect your phone.

Link to complete Z Case student presentation materials is HERE.

"For engineering, you want to come up with stuff on your own to improve things, that's what engineers do. I was wanting to improve a phone case. There are already phone cases like I had, but I wanted to improve it to where it would become a mini wallet at the same time that won't be bulky." -Zi Lin Higbie, Z Case Design Team Leader

As each student design team presented their products at the end of the project, industry experts who served as presentation judges provided insightful feedback to students. In some cases, the prototypes were so well designed that they could be manufactured for sale to the public with only minor modifications.

Would you buy these products? If they needed further modification to meet your needs as a consumer, would you hire these students to create a product designed for you?

If you had access to a 3D printer, what would you create? Would it be something just for fun? Would your product satisfy a consumer need?

Additional Project Resources 

Project Overview & Requirements
Product Concept Proposal Grading Rubric
Engineering Research Grading Rubric