Ultimaker uses functional, analytical and tracking cookies. Tracking cookies enhance your experience on our website and may also collect your personal data outside of Ultimaker websites. If you agree with the use of tracking cookies, click “I agree, continue browsing”. You can withdraw your consent at any time. If you do not consent with the use of tracking cookies, click “Refuse”. You can find more information about cookies on our Privacy and Cookie Policy page.
Cette page est affichée en anglais car elle n'est pas disponible dans la langue de votre choix.
Bringing 3D printing to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Matt Griffin and Liz Arum
Secondary education
History
Part of the mission of Ultimaker North America's Community team is to help educators get up and running with 3D printing and make it easier for them to integrate the technology into their curriculum. When we were presented with the opportunity to visit the Met for Teens Take the Met and partake in their "Intersections between Art and Science" event on December 1, we knew it would be a great way to practice this outreach with educators and students.
Since 1870, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has been a source of inspiration for artists. For the past two years, the Ultimaker Community Team has taken part in Teens Take the Met events to help educators and students celebrate the relationship between education and 3D printing, drawing deeply on this world-class collection.
For the event in December, we had the chance to document and share the Teens Take the Met activity, as well as to take this exploration further by creating lessons that leverage Ultimaker 3D printers to illuminate aspects of art and art history in the classroom: The Met Set.
Sophia Georgiou, founder of Morphi, demonstrating ways to use Morphi to get models created for the Ultimaker 3.
The Met Set incorporates a variety of educational goals that we feel offer opportunities for growth in the classroom. Integrating 3D printing with The Met Set into their curriculum will help educators meet the following objectives:
Support personal student exploration in the pursuit of a learning objective
Incorporate design thinking techniques
Build cooperative learning opportunities
Build resiliency by taking advantage of rapid prototyping and testing techniques
Develop communication skills through continuous documentation and sharing
During our experiences at Teens Take the Met, we invited those who were enthusiastic about 3D printing to try their hand at the Ultimaker Design Engine Starter Pack challenge. The Starter Pack can be used to generate scores of new projects in the classroom, encouraging a deeper exploration into the use of desktop 3D printers.
Completing the Design Engine challenge.
With an aim to inspire participants to create wild, spur-of-the-moment projects, the starter pack offers a flexible set of rules to suit a range of game styles, number of players, and experience levels. Educators find that these exercises are a great balance between simple school day projects and ambitious, semester-long student projects.
Lesson plans for 3D printing in the classroom
It was an exciting exercise to incorporate the Design Engine game into our lesson plans at Teens Take the Met, and we're happy to also offer the lesson plans online for educators who want to use them in their classrooms! As well as to reprise our collaboration with Sophia Georgiou, demonstrating Morphi as a lightning-fast means of going from first sketches to 3D models. Here are the lessons that were developed for the Met's December 1 event:
Hack the museum challenges students to use scans of museum collections to create original pieces inspired by great art.
Lithophanes introduce the concept of a traditional craft where an etched or molded artwork in very thin translucent porcelain can only be seen clearly when backlit with a light source.
A 3D printed lithophane lamp.
By converting an image to a height map where whites are transparent and blacks are opaque, one can obtain a similar effect using a 3D printer. There are several ways to create these heightmaps, but a really easy way is to drag an image, a JPG or a PNG file, onto the build platform of Ultimaker Cura. The software will ask you for parameters, but will essentially convert your darkest areas to more layers.
The Design Engine provides a way to incorporate the Met's collection into our popular brainstorming card-based activity.
Students working on the Design Engine challenge
Cylinder seals leverage the original seals from ancient Mesopotamia in the Met Collection. These cylinders could be rolled on a variety of objects made of clay. When seals were impressed on tablets or tablet cases the seal impressions served to identify the authority responsible for what was written in the documents, sort of like a signature does today.
This lesson challenges students to recreate an ancient seal or use Photoshop, Inkscape, and Fusion 360 or Morphi to create their own modern-day versions.
Lesson sparks is a series of lesson ideas that are meant to inspire an educator's own projects.
These sparks include:
A puzzle gallery
Designing your own Egyptian temple
Completing the piece
Creating a mask
Creating your own beasts
Visit the Education section of our website for more tips and guidance on how you can get started with 3D printing in the classroom. We're excited to hear about how educators and students alike use The Met Set to further their understanding of 3D printing and challenge themselves creatively!
Naturalis Biodiversity Center: Prehistoric prints, cutting-edge technology
Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the Netherlands’ national natural history museum, is using 3D printing to create both partial and full dinosaur skeletons for public display.
History
Informal learning
Feel the Action: Learn about how a college is changing lives in ways we can touch!
A 3D printing club emerges at College of the Dessert to help make ideas accessible to all students
Special education
Technology
How the tools we use influence the designs we make
Michael Delaney writes about his iterative process of integrating electronics and 3D printing in his programmable quadcopter project.
Informal learning
Technology
Bringing 3D printing to the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Part of the mission from Ultimaker North America's Community team is to help educators get up and running with 3D printing and to help them find meaningful ways to integrate the technology into their curriculum while celebrating their successes. When we w
Secondary education
History
3D printing as part of the Smithsonian Learning Lab
Pioneer Christopher Sweeney shares the work he did with 3D printing and the Smithsonian Learning Lab to create collections of educational resources, organized and structured for teaching and learning.
Informal learning
Art
Harvard calculus courses use 3D printed models to engage students
What is the best way to teach concepts like surface area and volume relating to mathematical objects in a three-dimensional world? The curricular design team at Harvard University thinks the...
University
Mathematics
3D Design in Mathematica: Tea Light Holders
If it’s happening in Ultimaker’s world, you can find out about it here. 3D printing stories about inspiring moments, original 3D printed projects and much much more.
Informal learning
Mathematics
Code your 3D designs with Tinkercad’s new Codeblocks app
Tinkercad released Codeblocks last June, and now that it's out of Beta, Pioneer Rob Morrill tells us how he uses it.
Informal learning
Technology
Modifying an STL with Tinkercad
When Ultimaker Pioneer Alex Larson contacted me about the Ultibot-D project, I was super excited. As a teacher and parent, I am a huge cheerleader for risk. I printed the base models at ⅕ scale and gave it to my students to explore
Primary education
Technology
Math Camp: Having fun doing stuff
Pioneer Dr Toni Szymanski writes about summer fun at camp with 4th and 5th graders, math, and 3D printing.
Primary education
Mathematics
GlitchCraft
Guest blogger Astrida Valigorsky writes about combining the old and the new at Timothy Belliveau's GlitchCraft class where students combined 3D printing and glass blowing.
Informal learning
Technology
Using Basecamp to manage your classroom/makerspace projects and print queue
Pioneer Andrew Woodbridge uses Basecamp to organize his students' projects, and he explains how you can too.
Secondary education
Technology
A unique 3D printing collaboration between mathematics and chemistry faculty
Passing it on. After integrating 3D printing into her own math courses, Kristen Schreck helps spread 3D printing across disciplines at Saint Xavier University.
University
Science
Living world monuments assignment
Pioneer Joanne Barrett shares about a middle school project that combines 3D printing, Augmented Reality, History, and Art.
Secondary education
History
My reintroduction to Netfabb
A recent NetFabb workshop convinced the writer that they can't live without this application. See why it's time to take another look at Netfabb.
Secondary education
Technology
Wrench Engineering
Inspired by NASA printed in space wrench, Pioneer Rob Morrill gave his fifth graders a design challenge to design their own real-world tool.
Primary education
Engineering
Integrating 3D printing and The Goblet Project
Pioneer Chris Hanusa shares one way he integrated 3D printing into his Integral Calculus class
University
Mathematics
3D printers in the public library: Finland ahead of the curve
US Professor Joshua Pearce, sponsored by Fulbright Finland for Research, shares his first impressions of Finnish libraries.
Informal learning
Technology
Lessons in letting go - releasing student energy speeds creation and use of our art and innovation lab
Pioneer John Nordell enlisted his students to put the Art and Innovation Lab together. The result was one of the best experiences he has had as an educator.
University
Technology
Teacher training for 3D printing
Pioneer Dr. Toni Szymanski thought that 3D printing could engage students in math classes. To test this out, she had to learn all about 3D printing first.
Secondary education
Mathematics
Digital fabrication informs ceramics decorative process
Pioneer Young Kim blends his classical arts background with digital fabrication to create a ceramic project that incorporates 3D printing.
Secondary education
Art
Modeling rocks at iCREATE
iCREATE's Tiffany Huang shared an iCREATE success story about Jackie Zheng.
Secondary education
Science
Elementary-College Engineering Design partnership
Pioneer Matthew Wigdahl writes about how his fifth graders and local undergraduate engineering students learn from each other.
Primary education
Engineering
Introducing Ultimaker’s Core Lessons Set for STEAM Educators
Designed by the Ultimaker North America Community Team, our new Core Lessons: STEAM Set is a resource for educators who need inspiration and ideas when they bring 3D printing into their classrooms.
Primary education
Technology
Empower one MakerGirl, empower the world
how the group traveled 10,000 miles around the country to help bring 3D printing workshops to over 1,000 young girls. In this week's post we catch up with the organization that is still working to create a new generation of confident, creative women leade
Primary education
Technology
Building a mobile maker space: part 2—up and rolling
So what exactly does a Mobile MakerSpace look like? That's the question I had to ask myself once I began the project of bringing 3D printing technology to virtual students. When we started this project, we knew we needed something that would be easy to
Secondary education
Technology
Building a mobile makerspace: part 1— getting started
Pioneer Wendy Aracich is putting together and implementing a mobile MakerSpace for her virtual school of 4000 students spread across the state of Georgia.
Secondary education
Technology
Tactile Problem/Solution Bank Community Project
3D modeling and printing should be accessible of every educator so that they may offer their students tactile means to understand spatial concepts.
Secondary education
Languages
Design Engine community project
We want to challenge educators and students to help evolve the Design Engine game. We want to see how you're using or modifying the game with your students, and we want to incorporate your ideas into the next edition.
Informal learning
Technology
Upcycling community project
Upcycling challenges students and educators to use their creativity and 3D printing skills to breathe new life into a few familiar objects.
Informal learning
Technology
Construct3D to Kamehameha Ed Tech Conference
Last year Pioneer Greg Kent traveled from Hawaii to North Carolina to attend Construct3D 2017. We thought we'd share his reflections with you now since we recently announced Construct3D 2018
Secondary education
Technology
Ocean Plastic Community Project
The Ultimaker Community Team will be launching a series of interdisciplinary projects over the next few months that challenge students to research, explore, design, and 3D print. Ocean Plastic is the first project of this series.
Secondary education
Geography
3D printed fractals at JMU 3SPACE
Pioneer Professor Laura Taalman, (a.k.a. mathgrrl), reviews a multi-week study of fractals by general education math students in the JMU 3D printing classroom.
University
Mathematics
Using drones and 3D printing to develop design thinking during a summer robotics camp
Pioneer Yuriy Drubinskiy writes about his experience leading a summer program and how creating drones with 3D printing brings form, structure, and design together.
Secondary education
Technology
Introducing the Ultimaker Design Engine Starter Pack
Presenting the Ultimaker Design Engine Starter Pack: a game created to provoke, inspire, and entertain students, educators, 3D designers, artists, and engineers of all experience levels!
Informal learning
Technology
Davidson Desktop Doohickeys: Puzzle cubes
Pioneer Adam Davidson writes about a project in his curriculum that is a rite of passage for his high school's engineering program students. He explains at how it started and what caused it to change
Secondary education
Engineering
3D printing with UMaine Bioengineering students
If it’s happening in Ultimaker’s world, you can find out about it here. 3D printing stories about inspiring moments, original 3D printed projects and much much more.
University
Science
3D printing, Arduino, and Star Wars: A guide to K-12 STEAM engagement
If it’s happening in Ultimaker’s world, you can find out about it here. 3D printing stories about inspiring moments, original 3D printed projects and much much more.
Secondary education
Technology
3D printable molecular models
Tandy Grubbs, Professor of Chemistry, writes about how chemistry students at Stetson University are taking advantage of 3D printing to better visualize the molecular world.
University
Science
Nautilus cam ball launcher
Design process is about discovery through iteration. Pioneer Brad Whitehead describes how his FTC robotics team learned this while working on a unique ball launcher.
Special education
Technology
Animal Adaptations
If it’s happening in Ultimaker’s world, you can find out about it here. 3D printing stories about inspiring moments, original 3D printed projects and much much more.
Primary education
Technology
3D water rockets
Pioneer Tim Cooper explains what to do with a First Lego League team in the off season when they love rockets and 3D printing.
Primary education
Science
Three reasons for open source tech in your 3D printing classroom
Pioneer Joshua Pearce explains why educators should consider using free and open source options in and out of the 3D printing classroom.
University
Technology
Our 3D printing journey in Multivariable Calculus
Here’s a story of the next generation of 3D printing pioneers exploring the 3D printing technology in Multivariable Calculus with the Ultimaker 2+.
University
Mathematics
#1 reason to love math: 3D printed puzzles
Pioneer Andreas Kaiser writes about the power of puzzles in the classroom and how recreating or designing puzzles is a perfect fit for his engineering students.
Secondary education
Mathematics
Thinking about the environment
The learning curve associated with 3D printing can produce a lot of 3D printed waste. It's time to start exploring and thinking about more sustainable options.
Informal learning
Geography
Why I use 3D printing in the classroom (and why you should too!)
While 3D printing is not new to designers, engineers and other professionals in need of rapid prototyping tools, it is still a new and exciting technology for our students. Pioneer Grace Bennett shares why teachers should get started with 3D printing.
Secondary education
Technology
3D printing artifacts from the Penn Museum
The chance to hold a 3D printed historical artifact in our hands is one of the greatest ways to boost students' engagement with science, engineering, and culture. Learn how challenging and exciting it can really be.
Secondary education
History
Managing an open 3D printing lab
What’s it like to be a student administrator for a 3D printing lab space? What kind of knowledge and experiences could you offer to students at your own school by hiring them for such position?
