"MAKING" in the City!

So this summer has been very interesting in terms of making things. At the end of this past school year I decided to learn more about 3D printing and other "MAKE-ing" that I can get more experience with. By doing this, I can hopefully incorporate some of these technologies into my teaching. So far as a Spanish and Photography teacher, I have had my students produce a few tech-driven projects including a cooking video, a self-promo stop motion video (both of which were in Spanish), and a PSA-themed stop motion video for my photography students. Some of these projects you can view on this blog below!

To start my Maker summer, I decided to visit the MakerLab at the Harold Washington Public Library (the central downtown branch of the Chicago Public Library). In a classroom-sized room on the 3rd floor, they offer free workshops to the public on a variety of Maker technologies including 3D printing, Laser cutting, Vinyl cutting, sewing, Arduino tech, and many others.

My first project was a 3D printed collage/ relief sculpture using Tinkercad and a 3D printer from Makerbot. Since the suggested theme was literature, I decided to use the Waldo and Woof characters from the Where's Waldo series by Martin Handford. To create the initial character images, I searched for an image of Waldo's face and an image of Woof in Google. Once I found the jpeg images, I imported these into Inkscape, a free open-source vector drawing program. I traced them to create the vectors and exported them as .svg files so that Tinkercad could open them. Once I had imported them, Tinkercad automatically turned these files into 3-dimensional shapes that can be adjusted and manipulated. I made a base for the 2 figures to stand on, placed them, and exported to Makerbot's print software for printing. Voila! Press PRINT and wait for the printer to do its thing...

Waldo in Inkscape.

Woof in Inkscape.

The finished "collage" in Tinkercad.

Makerbot print utility software and print preview.

Milie working hard on my print!

Almost done...

Tadaaaa!!!!

Some of the other things I've made in these workshops include a Mexican sugar skull pendant, Laser-cut cat earrings and medallions, a headphone holder, a modular sculptural toy, and a dog-themed electronically cut bookmark. The common tech that we used for almost all of these projects was Tinkercad and Inkscape which are both free to use. Also, when you do a workshop, written instructions are provided as is the chance to get free printing time if you visit the Makerlab workshops at least 4 times (you get a stamp card). There are other tech that's offered at the Makerlab like Arduino and Fusion 360, among others but I haven't been able to check these out yet but hopefully before the summer is over I can do a few more workshops. Thanks Makerlab and CPL for everything!

Modular toy

Headphone holder

Sugar skull pendant

Cat pendant