Dummy 13’s + TinkerCAD! Teaching kids to digitally model!
I have been teaching an after school class for middle schoolers at Saint Paul Public Schools for their FlipSide program two afternoons a week since the beginning of the school year and folks, I have learned a lot. Today marks the beginning of the second term and I plan to take things up a notch.
During the first term we assembled two BambuLab A1 Minis and have been printing freely available models so that they can learn how the printers work. I can say with confidence that this tactic has worked famously thanks to two things: Fidgets and Dummy 13’s! Both were discoveries made by my students after I showed them how to access sites like Printables.com to find predesigned models that they can print. The kids love them and have printed a bunch so they can have them for themselves and share them with their classmates. I’ve personally printed hundreds of these fidget rings since then and hand them out to strangers like I’m a grandpa with a pocket full of Werther’s candies.
Then the kids discovered Dummy and Mini 13s by the designer Soozafone and things really started to take off. Once they realized that they could make their own action figures with better articulation than 95% of the toys out there they were hooked! (I may have accidentally started a black market at my school? Gotta investigate that….)
Last term we were all about making figures in different colors and finding accessories to print (that aren’t weapons, which is a challenge….). This term I want them to start making their own accessories and adaptations! Today is the first day of the new term and we’re going to start learning TinkerCAD so that they can start making their own stuff. I set up a classroom within the app and have started setting up activities like “Customize your own Mini 13”, “Adapt a Dummy 13 Head”, and “Customize a Dummy 13 Chestplate”, just to start. Can’t wait to see where they go with it!
Today will be their first day with TinkerCAD and I think they’re ready for it. I’m very glad SPPS supplies their students with iPads, I think it’s a great way to go! We’ll start with some basic tutorials but I want to show them from the start what they can do with the new skills they’re about to learn so they have goals in mind to motivate them to learn how to use the program. Because that’s exactly how I motivate myself!
Off to do more class prep….
-Seán
Soozafone’s Printables Page: https://www.printables.com/@soozafone
DrJones 3D Printed Fidget Rings: https://www.printables.com/model/909541-fidget-gear-ring