How the Primary School in Dobrzyń nad Wisłą uses 3D printers from the Future Laboratories program in practice

The Future Laboratories program, under which primary schools across the country were given the opportunity to purchase and install 3D printers en masse for the first time in history, has different faces. In some institutions, 3D printers “just exist” and the degree of their use is disproportionate to the possibilities – in others, teachers see their full potential and try to use them to implement very interesting and important projects for local communities together with their students. A model example is the Primary School. Maria Konopnicka in Dobrzyń on the Vistula…

In 2021, Mr. Sylwester Struś – a mathematics teacher at the Primary School in Dobrzyń nad Wisłą, contacted CD3D to help implement 3D printing technology as part of the Laboratories of the Future program. The company provided the school with a Zortrax M200 Plus 3D printer and a set of filaments for work. In addition, she trained the teaching staff in the area of its use and conducting classes with students, using popular, free 3D design programs such as Microsoft 3D Builder or Tinkercad. At the same time, we remained in constant contact with Mr. Sylwester, advising on the operational or design issues of the 3D printer.

Regardless of the help we provided, the students, led by Mr. Sylwester, approached the subject of 3D printing with great commitment, going beyond printing standard, free 3D models downloaded from the Internet. In February this year, the school’s students took part in the “Third Dimension of Education” competition organized by the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Center for Teacher Education in Bydgoszcz. The competition task was to design an everyday object in any 3D graphics modeling program and print it on a 3D printer. The first place in the competition was taken by a student of the school – Szymon Struś, for the design and production of a chess model, and the second place was taken by another two students – Oliver Rybacki and Jakub Zieliński for the design and production of a key hanger.

In March this year, Mr. Sylwester asked us to transform the figure of St. Joseph Moscatti (Giuseppe Moscati) into a digital object so that students can print it themselves as part of the class. This time, volunteers from our Foundation – REMAKE IT GREEN – were involved in the project, who scanned the figure with a handheld 3D scanner SHINING3D EinScan Pro 2X 2020, and then optimized the received 3D scan in Blender software. The 3D model of the figure has been prepared in two variants – full and divided into two parts, so that students can print it on their 3D printers.

REMAKE IT GREEN volunteers conducted several test 3D prints to check whether the figure geometry optimization they created met the design requirements. They then sent the .STL files with the 3D models to Mr. Sylwester, who verified and approved their printing by the students. In addition to the 3D printing itself, the figures are manually cleaned of supports, sanded and painted.

On June 25, 2023, the relics of St. Józef Moscati to the parish of pw. Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Dobrzyń on the Vistula. The school cooperates with the parish and decided to help promote this project by printing 3D figures depicting the image of the Saint. Thanks to this action, students of the school will help to spread the ideas propagated by St. Józef Moscati among the local community.

Currently, the REMAKE GREEN Foundation is implementing another project for the school in the form of a 3D print of an even larger variant of the figure, approx. 50 cm high.

Primary School Maria Konopnicka in Dobrzyń nad Wisłą, thanks to the involvement of teachers and students and cooperation with the REMAKE GREEN Foundation, has become a place where 3D printing as part of the Laboratories of the Future contributes to the development of education. The use of modern technologies in teaching opens up new opportunities for students to develop, be creative and acquire practical skills useful on the labor market.

Source: www.remakeitgreen.com
Photos: www.remakeitgreen.com & Sylwester Struś (SP w Dobrzyniu nad Wisłą)