Twice a week our sixth graders go to the Tech Lab to learn 3D printing and design. They use Tinkercad, an online web tool to create their 3D objects. After running through some basic tutorials, their first challenge is to get their creative juices flowing by designing an abstract sculpture. You can see a photo of their sculptures below, and here’s a link to viewing the models in 3D.
Their next challenge is to create a new sculpture using only cylinders as their building blocks. This forces them to use the tools more creatively.
The long-range goal of the elective is to design and test wind turbine blades that they can mount on our Lego Renewable Energy kits. Using spreadsheets to analyze the performance of their turbine blades, our sixth graders will make design modifications to optimize how much wind they can capture and turn into electrical energy.