Picture Learning: 3D Printing

I'm going to attempt semi-daily posts that share one image from our day. Today we did our first benhmark testing of the year (boo!). But, we got some great learning done too. Our MakerBot Replicator 2 3D Printer arrived last week. After setting it up and doing a test print yesterday, the students got to observe this amazing device in action today.

The question of the day was: How does it work?

The students used their powers of observation to take notes, then write up an explanation for how they think the printer works based on their observations. Below are 2 groups of students observing the printer in action and one student's work:

One cool thing about this work is that the student above (and several others) used their knowledge from Hour of Code to help them think about how the device works. You can see this at the end of his explanation where he references a coding activity we did using cups and arrows.


We can't wait to do more with our new 3D Printer which was provided thanks to a generous grant from MakerBot and Donors Choose
~ Amanda