3D printing in education is one of the most important features of a relevant classroom curriculum. With 3D printers changing the face of manufacturing, medicine, design and engineering, learning about the technology is vital to ensuring children are digitally literate and can access jobs when they leave school. Filament based 3D printing is making it’s way into the classroom around the world and our curriculum is supporting teachers in 31 countries with nearly 180000 learners. After speaking to many teachers using our curriculum it’s clear that resin 3D printing is the natural next step in continuing the learning journey. With filament 3D printing being the starting point for most classroom teachers, the natural progression is to keep pushing the learning of students as the technology evolves. With machines such as the Formlabs Form 2 being used in businesses globally, the chances of students using resin 3D printers when they enter employment is almost a ‘given’. With this in mind we have developed our curriculum and added resin 3D printing expert lesson pack suitable for machines such as the formlabs form 2 along with DLP 3D printers. In addition to this new pack we have released a new ‘mega bundle’ where you can are purchase the whole filament and resin curriculum at a discounted rate. If you want to ‘future proof’ our classroom then our mega bundle lesson pack will do this.

Resin 3d printing in the classroom

Using resin 3D printers in the classroom provides a whole new learning experience for students. The technology behind the printers is completely different to filament 3D printers. The outcomes that 3D printers such as the Formlabs form 2 deliver, are completely different and far more advanced. With filament 3D printing, there has been the ever focused aim by manufacturers to print with the finest resolution, to manufacture designs that are as accurate as possible and to increase the speed of the machines without compromising quality. However, they have never reached the definition and accuracy of resin machines. With Resin 3D printing, the technology throws all of this on its head. Resolution and quality can be achieved. The outcomes are printed so accurate that you can’t visibly see the layers. This then means  you can print complex designs with extremely small tolerances. Furthermore, you don’t have to think about the optimum speed settings and you don’t need to worry about many of the common frustrations associated with filament machines.  With SLA 3D printers revolutionising desktop resin 3D printing, industrial and commercial outcomes are now achievable in the classroom. Our new curriculum content supports teachers in their aim to deliver the most up to date and engaging content in their classroom.

Curriculum objectives?

The curriculum objectives of the expert resin pack is to teach learners about how resin 3D printers work and how to create designs for resin machines. With technology such as the formlabs form 2, allowing for far greater complexity when designing, the CAD tutorials (Fusion 360) allow learners to design complex outcomes that wouldn’t be achievable using filament based 3D printers. As part of the resin expert curriculum there are 12 fusion 360 challenges all with video tutorials teaching learners how to design jewellery. Resin machines and jewellery design go hand in hand due to the fine detail that the printers can deliver. Also the speed that printers such as the formlabs form 2 can achieve is impressive and allows for fast print times with an near 100% success rate. The usual issues of ensuring prints stick to the print surface, ensuring nozzles aren’t clogged and filament is flowing correctly can hugely effect the outcome of the print. With 3D printers like the form 2, these issues don’t occur. You can leave the print in confidence knowing it will print the design. You can also print multiple designs at once using ‘nesting’ techniques without worrying about moving extruders knocking over designs. Gone are the days of returning to a print that looks like a birds nest. As long as you have the calibration right, your model will print. The formlabs pre-form software will run an analysis on the STL file to ensure that will print and will auto generate supports for optimum printing.

Classroom lesson content

There are 7 lessons as part of the expert pack and the content is aimed at learners who are 16 years old and above. The CAD skills in the 12 Fusion challenges are for classroom learners who have already have some knowledge of CAD modelling. Lesson 1 and 2 focus on the theory element of resin machines comparing both SLA and DLP printers and the process involved with creating a successful prints. Lesson 3 teaches learners how to optimise files using Autodesk Meshmixer. One of the main differences between filament machines and SLA/DLP technology is how the model is sliced. Resin printers produce outcomes that are 100% solid as opposed to filament printers where you have to specify the infill percentage of the print. This has both advantages and disadvantages. 100% solid prints can increase classroom prints costs, so optimising them saves material costs.  During this lesson, learners are also tasked with Math tasks challenging them to work out the percentage decrease in material costs after optimising the STL files and also working out percentage increases after support materials have been added. The lesson will stretch and challenge your learners and create a truly 21st century classroom, ready for industry 4.0.

Lesson 4,5,6 all focus on learning how to create designs to be printed on resin machines. The lessons all include step by step screen shots of CAD instructions and video tutorials allowing for learners to work independently through each design challenge. The curriculum allows for students to experience a fully immersive classroom experience in resin 3D printing. Furthermore, the focus on jewellery design allows for classroom printing costs to be kept low. If you have a class of 20 learners all creating multiple designs if the prints are large, the costs will soon add up. With all the jewellery challenges being small, this will keep material costs to a minimum and allow for multiple design iterations to be completed by learners.

As with the beginners, intermediate and advanced curriculum, all the content comes pre-planned ready to teach. Each lesson has a homework task along with answer sheets and at the end of the lesson pack their is a final assessment for learners to complete that is split between a practical CAD exam using fusion 360 and a theory exam testing the content learned. The curriculum comes ready to teach and after purchase we send you the files so you can use them year after year and you can edit them to suit your learners. This lesson pack can work with any brand of resin 3D printer, not just the formlabs form 2 model.

If you want to ask us any questions about the curriculum and anything in general with classroom 3D printing, then use the contact form below;