Three simple ways to use the Makerspace 3D Printers in your Art Curriculum

Three ways in which you can use your School Library Makerspace 3D Printer to enhance the Art curriculum.

1. Flourishes for Textiles 

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As part of our textiles curriculum, students are shown how to create and print custom buttons on our 3D Printers. If they don't like buttons, they can custom print a tag to be sewn onto their garment or in this case (image) iPad pouch.

This is a quick and easy task that is designed to get them thinking about the application of 3D Printing in the textile realm.

2. Create jewellery

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As part of a Year 10 graphic design unit, students designed their own jewellery and then we scanned in the diagrams, converted them to 3D shapes using Selva3D and printed them off. In reality, it is probably more a laser cutting exercise than 3D Printer, but we didn't have a laser cutter.

3. Create Makers Mark stamps for ceramics

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This is such an incredibly simple concept. Students who do ceramics normally sketch their name on the base of the object that they have made. A Makers Mark stamp is another extension of that and an opportunity to talk about branding.

If you want to take this concept pone step further, creating a metal "makers mark" can be done via shapeways and here is an example of one. You could create it as a keyring and get it printed in metal.