3D printing

Sekinger makes a strong case for 3D printing in the library and has seen a lot of excitement an interest by students.  I agree “that a library should be a place of discovery and exhibition, innovation and connection” (Sekinger, para. 1). 

I have had no experience with 3D printing.  Although I find it fascinating, I also find it intimidating.  I spent an hour with Tinkercad.  I completed all of the tutorial projects to get a general feel for the 3D creation process.  I did fine with basic skills like moving, copying and deleting objects.  I also learned how to look at objects from different angles and how to zoom in and out.  I had to do the cutting holes twice to get it.  Adding letters to the keychain I had to do twice as well and “die on a workplane” I had to do three times and I’m still not sure that I got it right.  This is where working in a tech lab with someone available to help or answer questions would have been helpful.  

I decided to try my own design.  I added a person but after multiple attempts could not figure out how to manipulate eyes so they were on the front of the face.  I gave up and tried adding a hat.  That also was unsuccessful – I was not able to get it to actually match up to the head.  I could spend hours trying to figure it out but realize this is a skill that I would need help mastering.  I would probably need a hands-on basic class and a person available to answer questions or help when I got stuck.  I am very visual so actually seeing someone do it would make the process much more understandable for me.  I don’t actually have a picture of something I created because I wasn’t successful, but I learned that I would like to learn more.  I think working in a maker space would be fun.  

Hour of Code

I also have limited experience with coding, so I thought I might give that a try.  I tried “Hello World: Retro”.  In completing the tutorial, I learned how to create a sprite that one can interact with by making them speak or perform actions when you click on them.  Using blocks of code, you mix and match and the result is a mini program.  After an hour of learning how to use the code blocks, I didn’t have a lot of creativity when it came to creating my own mini-program.  As noted in the article How Computational Thinking Fits Within Library Services, this was a visual hands-on activity that challenged me to break problems into smaller parts, find patterns, and design solutions (para. 3).  It was also fun!   Here’s my mini-program:

https://studio.code.org/projects/spritelab/51k4vnI-cTT6OuKKyYyPMzG-uCok3fFP0tDWb3sgijc

I would need a lot more time to create something fun!  I would like to go back and try a new program when I have a good idea now that I have the hang of it.

References

How computational thinking fits within library services (2018, November 26).  Libraries Ready to Code. http://www.ala.org/tools/readytocode/how-computational-thinking-fits-within-library-servicesSekinger,

N. (2019). Making a place for “3D” in our school library. Imade3D. https://www.imade3d.com/2019/02/making-a-place-for-3d-in-our-school-library/