Building a RepRap as european school project

Hello Everybody,

I would like to start an european school project, in which several schools coming together in a workshop to build up there own RepRaps.
For the attending schools this may serve as a starting point to use the 3D printer in lessons and/or to build several new ones for other schools in there region.

To find such schools which may attend to the project i need your help!

If you know a school (maybe your old school) with students in the age of 16 up to 20 years old and an orientation to either technology or design, it would be helpfull for me if you can submit me the contact information of it.
If you know a teacher personaly who may be interestd into the 3D printing technolgy, please let me know or give her/him my emailaddress Ingo.Schinz[at]bztg-oldenburg.de.

Who I'am?
I'am a teacher of mathematics, natural science and information technologies in a school in northern germany.
It is a few weeks ago that i build my first prusa mendel and succesfully used it in my lessons as an example for rapid prototyping in a class of ongoing designers.
In my opinion the RepRap is an excelent machine to teach different disciplines ranging from electrical engineering up to desgin studies.
For my school I ordered two kits of ORCA 3D-printer from Mendel-Parts.com which i may receive in the next weeks.

Why european schools?
The European Union has an excelent framework called Comenius to support projects and partnerships between european schools. This is also including money for the students to pay the costs of visiting the other projectschools. That's the main reason why i would like to limit the project to european schools. But if there are good reasons why a non european school should attend please let me know. The Comenius projects need to be submitted until February 2012 to start a project in Summer 2013.

Please let me know what you are thinking about the idea of such a project.

Greetings
Ingo Schinz

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2011 01:26PM by Ingo.Schinz.

Hi Ingo,

the idea sounds exellent

I'm tinkering with the idea to start a 3DRP-workgroup in the school of my older son, but he is 12 years old now, so i have some years until it will become urgent

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

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As a mentor for a First robotics team at the local US high school (16-18 years old) they would be more then capable of mastering the technology. Its great that you as an instructor have the freedom to put such a program on. Rapid prototyping is in every design house and this exposure is great. The only question is after you build the machines, and are able to create designs, what do you plan to have the students build with the machines?

Hello dean448,

what I want the students to build with the RepRap is belonging to the kind of students

1) For design students there is the "big picture" of a product design cycle. I'am using laserscanner technology (compare [www.david-laserscanner.com]) in the lessons to enable the students to scan a real wordl object and thus transform it into a digital model. After that the students have to modify this design in the computer and print it with the RepRap. The printed prototype will be discussed in the whole class and may go into the next cycle of design. All this is embedded into a virtual customer order.

2) We also have students with an orientation to technology which are developing robots. For thus it is essential to be able to create functional parts of the robots. This could be done with metal, wood or even plastic printed by a RepRap.

3) At my school we are educating the professional students for technical product design (in german "Technischer Produktdesigner"). For thus it is the main goal to be able to create and handel 3D models and thus it is a great help for them to be able to print 3D models and hold them in hands.

These are some scenarios I have in mind. But I also believe that only building of a RepRap is a valueable experience for the students.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/18/2011 12:52AM by Ingo.Schinz.