Ever thought about the wider impact of 3D Printing beyond the machine and designing? Topics such as what type of materials 3D printer use is covered in the lesson. Students will learn the difference between ABS and PLA and basics of how material use effects the environment when 3D printing. Also there is a brief over view of the potential benefits and pitfalls of using Bio-plastics in 3D Printing.
In this lesson your classes will also use CURA to ‘slice’ the models they completed in the design challenge (lesson 5). This will create the gcode that can be sent to a 3D Printer to enable the printing of the design. Cura is an open source slicing package that allows for easy model preparation and is widely used by over 2 million 3D printing enthusiasts.
It’s extremely easy to use and can be added to school networks. In the lesson content there is step by step instructions, with images of how to prepare and slice the model for 3D printing. Topics covered include importing the STL file into CURA, deciding on layer thickness of the model and how much infill (density) you want to print the design at and then finally how to send the sliced design to the 3D printer.
This is the last lesson before the end of module assessment (lesson 7). To get this lesson you can subscribe to the teacher portal and access the content or buy a copy of the files.
