This week Jeff Ginger came into our class to speak to us about the FabLab and the importance of 3D printing. He spoke a lot about the importance of exposing children, especially in their early teens, to creativity and curiosity. Jeff made this realization when he was working at a library and discovered some teens playing Minecraft. Minecraft is a video game that allows players to create and build their own world using blocks. Jeff made the connection between Minecraft and 3D printing and decided to introduce 3D printing to their young minds. As Jeff says, I believe this can be extremely beneficial for the community, allowing young teens to imagine and create things from their developing minds. In addition, Jeff speaks about the Fablab and how it is one of the only ones that is still open to the public. This not only allows the public to have a creative outlet, but also allows people from different areas and backgrounds to share their ideas and hopefully come out with something amazing. Overall, Jeff was an excellent speaker and got me even more interested in the creative and art aspect of 3D printing.
Also, in class, my group had the opportunity to create our logo. When thinking of what we wanted our team name to be, we wanted it to be something cohesive and collaborative. We then thought of the phrase, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” This made us think of a puzzle piece. Therefore, we created a puzzle piece and named our team, Team Synergy.
In order to make this 3D print, we had to first learn Tinkercad. Tinkercad is the system that allows you to create your print and scale it. The two students, Billy and Dash were extremely helpful and energetic in teaching us how to use it. Tinkercad was pretty easy to play around with and my group and I quickly figured out the best way to make our puzzle piece. We printed it and it turned out well the first time! We were super interested in watching how layer by layer the printer created the design we created just minutes before. It was pretty incredible.
When searching online for other resources that could help me learn more about 3D printing, I stumbled upon this DIY Weather LED Light Display. This 3D printed LED lamp shows the weather through colors. For example, if it’s snowing, white lights will come down the lamp. If its raining, blue lights will come down the lamp. If its warm, red, if its cold, blue, etc. Prints like these make me realize how much you can do and how limitless 3D printing really is. Overall, this week was great and I am happy we finally got to use the printers!
Hey Maddi,
Great summary of the guest lecture. I also found his talk very inspiring how one idea led to the next and how he ended up at the Fablab. Adding onto that, I also liked how he considers himself a librarian and that the definition of librarians should be to help the public access knowledge and resources in whatever capacity. Your post and his talk about encouraging young kids and teens to develop their creativity also reminded me of the UIUC startup MakerGirl. https://makergirl.us/ This is a startup that puts on workshops to introduce young girls to the sciences and get them interested in the maker mindset as well as engineering. They have some great posts about their various workshops.
Also I love the idea of a puzzle piece and the quote that inspired it! Great idea overall, Looking forward to seeing all of the team logos!
Hi Maddi!
I really enjoyed reading your post. I thought you wrote a great recap about Jeff’s speech. The connection between Minecraft and 3D printing is very interesting. The kids I babysit for always play Minecraft and it would be cool to watch what they could create with a 3D printer. I think exposing kids to these recourses will help us develop the future because their imagination and creative minds. You should check out the UIUC fab labs Instagram to see more pictures of students and kids camps using the printers. Here is the link to their Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/explore/locations/17728958/
The DIY Weather LED Light Display was so cool! I would definitely buy something like that, it reminded me of a lava lamp. I love how they use colors to correspond to the weather.
I also really enjoyed listening to Jeff speak about the fab lab and everything that was possible. I thought it was really fun trying the printers for the first time and seeing everyone’s different creative ideas for their team names and logos. I love the finished product of the puzzle piece! I remember seeing the beginning of it at the end of our class and I think it turned out great. I can’t wait to see the different products all of the teams create and how much progress we make by the end of the class.
Hey Maddi,
I loved your idea of printing the weather displaying LED lamps. Those are really cool and a creative way to check the weather! I also really enjoyed listening to Jeff speak about his work with young adults in the community. I think it’s important to foster creativity at a young age into something constructive as Jeff is helping young adults do.