Name: Zaana Cooper
School: St Peter’s, Cambridge.
3D Printing Project: Containing Scents
Describe the 3D printing project that you want to be considered for the award?
Students were posed a question: How might we make a personalised perfume/cologne as a gift for somebody special?
Why did you choose to use this activity?
Students were learning about measurement, I wanted a project that would encounter as many of the concepts as possible. I knew making recipes for scents, bottles and packaging would involve problem solving around accurate measurement, knowledge of units, understanding of measurement terms, estimation, conversions and nets. They could apply and construct knowledge in these areas as they moved through the design process.
How did you implement and use it?
Students accessed a shared google slide presentation which guided them through an immersion process: Collecting, organising, making observations, identifying interesting aspects and asking questions about the bottles and scents. They began sketching initial ideas about how they would like their bottle to look and work functionally as well as collecting recipes that would help them design their own scents. They had a design workbook to record their thinking, problem solving and iterations along the way with prompting questions at checkpoints to check understanding of key concepts. Another shared google presentation gave students to access to key concepts in the form of games and questions to prompts notes. They could revisit these games when they needed a better understanding of new concepts as they came up in their design process. Students worked independently and at their own speed, deciding what key concepts they needed to focus on next and when to apply the concepts to the making process. Students then used Tinkercad to design their bottles, plasticine to prototype, and xyz printers to turn them into an actual product in which they filled with perfume and packaged using cardboard nets.
What outcomes has it achieved for you and your class?
Students have bean able to take ownership of their learning. Using an assessment chart on the wall to record their progress. Problem solving and application of new knowledge has consolidated their understandings and motivated them to learn about the next concept needed to create. Students have a real context to discuss measurement and more reason to talk about it with their peers, therefore consolidating and teaching each other vocabulary and strategies. Students have been motivated to begin maths every day, asking if we can keep going at the end of a lesson. Students have begun self regulating and asking questions, thinking critically by trying to solve problems along the way.
Additional resources:
Screenshots:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14FxUCHFTJb8kD1cRbHLJUOW7oBtRH2zJWDnxQrY3aB0/edit?usp=sharing
The challenge and inquiry process:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17fpbSqyD5VcuVMxeFs_Noef8fllW4nObvrfcmmxsLZw/edit?usp=sharing
The booklet used for design of bottles:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VmNtO-eG3uNO47XANoIhxY-q6giB_lva9sg5mfM7jVg/edit?usp=sharing
