Microsoft Visits BPC

Last May, we were contacted by Microsoft Education:

I received your email from Brook Drum, at Printrbot. He indicated that you have been using a 3D Printer in your classroom for some time now. I work on Microsoft’s World Wide Education team. My colleagues Anthony, Russell (copied), and I, want to produce a short video story on 3D printers in education. 

Since it was so late in the school year, we opted to wait until the fall(ish).  Anyway, Microsoft did sent a filmmaker to our classroom, and you can see the result of the visit below (or on YouTube).

YouTube caption: With Microsoft and MakerBot, the middle school students in the Maker Club at Black Pine Circle School (BPC) are developing the necessary skills to make the world a better place by using their unique perspectives and passions to inspire their 3D printed creations.

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6th grader's Blinky Badge on Instructables! (ready to check)

I love Star Trek so I decided to make a Star Trek communicator badge. I started by cutting the shape out of cardboard and putting an LED on it. but it kept falling off so I tried some other things. When I made a version that worked, I wrote some instructions for it on Instructables.
My Instructable

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3D Scanning With the Structure Sensor

The Structure Sensor is a versatile 3D scanner with a host of apps and programs that you can use with it. It is made by Occipital, which licensed the technology to 3D Systems as the iSense.  (Read 3DPI's review here.)  The Structure Sensor adds a infrared camera and projector and uses your iPad's camera to sense color. Since the Structure Sensor's SDK is public there are many programs you can use with it some of these programs include Skanect, ItSeez3D, and Structure Sensor's own collection of apps.

A Scan of  My Computer Set Up

1. Skanect: Skanect is a PC and Mac scanning software (by Occipital). It costs $129. Connecting the Structure Sensor to the software is easy, you just connect both to the same wifi network and they automatically connect if you have free app called Structure open. You see a live view of what the Structure Sensor is seeing when you are scanning. I find you can scan larger objects with Skanect than any other Structure Sensor app or program but most 3D models do not have backs which make it hard to 3D print. Skanect also works with the Kinect.


2. ItSeez3D: ItSeez3D is a iPad app that uses the Structure Sensor to capture 3D data. It creates amazing head scans but each scan needs to process in the cloud which can take about 10 minutes. ItSeez3D does take good scans of objects other than heads.







3. Structure Sensor's own apps: Structure Sensor's own apps (Room Capture, Scanner, Fetch) allow you to use your structure sensor in many ways like playing a AR game, checking how far away something is, scanning a object, or scanning a room. Lets start out with the AR game, it is called Fetch. To start, you scan a area in front of you then a cat on a hoverboard pops on to the screen and you and to move the cat around to reach the ball. The game is on top of your scan data so you can't run through a chair. You can use an app called Structure to see how far something is away or see something in infrared.

To scan rooms you use a app called Room Capture. It works pretty well but it is annoying that you have to stay in one place and not move around. Once you finish scanning you can move around your scan in the app and take measurements. You can then email the room scan to anybody as a OBJ file.

Using the Structure Sensor to scan a Yeti microphone

To scan object you can use Occipital's Scanner app. It can scan objects in color but the color are blended together and not that high resolution. To show you what you have captured the app covers it in white. You can then process your scan in the app and send it to people as a OBJ file.










- Sam (8th grade)

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BPC Maker Club Shares our Makerspace at Cool Tools 2015!

Today, BPC Maker Club embarked on a different kind of presentation.  Different than the Maker Faire or Bay Area Science Festival, where we met with people of all ages, and different than the 3DPW Expo, where we were networking with companies, CUE Cool Tools 2015 was a workshop for teachers.

We highlighted a few of our maker projects in school.  You can see our presentation here:

Then allowed for lots of small-group, hands-on time for teachers to learn more about MaKey MaKeys, Scratch, Lilypad sewable electronics and 3D printing. 

(Students, add your reflections here)

"I agree!" - Ms. Mytko

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Science Fair with 3D Printing and Augmented Reality!

It's about that time again.  This Thursday will be our school science fair.  Last year, I was so pleased to see 3D printing used as a tool in a number of the projects. Not because it was required, or a special 3D printing class, but because it was there and allowed students to create the objects they needed for a specific purpose.  This year is no different.

This year features:

1) Another 3D printed drone body.  Although, unlike last year's downloaded files, these parts were designed by 7th graders using TinkerCAD.  As an added bonus, the kids took advantage of their classmate's recent headway with ditto printing to speed the process along.

Perhaps equally impressive are the clamps one girl downloaded, printed and assembled for her use while building the drone.

making clamps

2) Pinhole camera (pic on its way!)

3) Hair straighteners - this was one of the more disturbing projects (visually!)  Using supposedly "real human hair" (from Amazon) this group was studying the effect of different straightening techniques on the strength of hair. They used heat, but also wanted to use magnetism and dry ice (hey, it's 7th grade), so they needed to custom design their own handles to hold the magnets and dry ice. For these ladies, it was their first time using TinkerCAD and the 3D printer.



4) Gliders - This group began by downloading files on Thingiverse to do some preliminary background research, but quickly moved to designing their own wings.  Starting off in TinkerCAD, they eventually decided to move to Fusion360.  The best part?  ONe boy taught HIMSELF how to use the 3D printer.  Because he could. :)



5) Insect maze (pic on its way!)

This year, we intend to include augmented reality into our traditional trifold boards, like last year. Unlike last year (when we had only heard of AR for the first time 10 days before the fair), we've had time to learn more about Aurasma in general and will be using Aurasma Studio, rather than the more expedient, but less flexible app method.

While we had hoped to master the process of creating 3D models (ex) using Maya to incorporate into Aurasma (therefore allowing students to display v1 and v2, etc of their projects) we are happy to simply include student videos again.

We'll keep you posted!

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Add HP LaserJet 1020 Plus Printer to Ubuntu

 HP LaserJet 1020 Plus is a popular printer. This printer can work well with Windows. Ubuntu does not accept the printer in the first phase. We have to configure the printer proper to start work with. HP Linux drivers are available and make our work easy.

1. Connect your printer with computer.
2. Download HPLIP automatic installer from here
3. Give execute permission to the file, Right Click -Properties-Permissions

 4. Right Click and Open > Run in Terminal

5. Give password of Ubuntu to proceed the installation. Give answer for installation questions.

6. Download printer plug-in (same version number) from following link.
7. Give execute permission to the file, Right Click -Properties-Permissions
8. Right Click and Open > Run in Terminal
9. Follow the instructions in the installation process.
10. Restart computer.
11. Configure the printer apply the command sudo hp-setup in terminal.

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BPC at the 3D Printer World Expo

Here is a brief overview of our experience at 3DPW - more to be added soon, but homework and science fair is taking up most of our time right now!

This past weekend, the BPC Maker Club was excited to be part of 3D Printer World Expo in Burbank, CA.  3DPW is currently the only 3D printing conference in the country (world?) that allows kids under the age of 18.  

Last year, we were attendees (post 1, post 2) and realized that there was a lot of talk about how 3D printing was being used with students... without the voices of any actual kids!  This summer we contacted Bob Tisch, one of the organizers of the conference, and he agreed to find space for our kids to share their work.  We were told that a seminar space would not work, since "one of the vendors" already had that claimed (more** on this later) so we were generously offered a booth space on the Expo floor - right next to many companies we know and admire.  It may have been way in the corner, but we were thrilled to even be on the map!  (See us there, in the upper left hand corner of the map?!)

BPC Maker Club at our 3DPW booth!

We left after lunch on Thursday and flew down to Burbank just in time for the opening reception. The 8th grade boys did enjoy the fancy, open buffet!

Friday morning, we were in the elevator, heading down to the Expo floor, when we ran into John Westrum, from Afinia**.  He was the vendor that was speaking at the seminar "Enhancing Education Curriculum Through 3D Printing."  John is somewhat familiar with our work, having run into Ms. Mytko at a number of previous conferences, and was very excited to see up there.  Then he very generously offered to shorten his presentation and give us half his time slot to speak at the seminar.  We were happy to oblige.

Jane during the Q & A at "Enhancing Education Curriculum Through 3D Printing"

Ms. Mytko describes our 8th grade 3D printing project

That afternoon, we also met a number of folks from 3DSystems / Gentle Giants Studio, located nearby in Burbank.  They called the studio and arranged a tour for us!

Action figures at Gentle Giants Studio

BPC kids hanging out with Jabba the Hutt at Gentle Giant Studio

The EPIC scanning studio - sweet!

(We were not allowed to take photos in the 3D printing room, but it was incredible.)

Chillin in the conference room at Gentle Giant Studio

We also met a teacher and STEAM coordinator, Markos, that offered to give us a tour of his makerspace.  He heard us speak at the seminar and said we are "where he was two years ago."  From the looks of his awesome space, we will take that as a compliment!

Some of us went to seminars occasionally, but mostly we hung out at our booth and talked... and talked.  And networked with big companies.  We will write more about our Expo floor adventures soon!

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