3d Printed Science Projects ― Ideas for Your Classroom, Science Fair or Home

3D printers are becoming far more common as popularity has increased, prices drop and they become more usable. However, there is a learning curve and so a printer owner, user, parent, teacher, or student usually stall out of projects once they have printed some toys or a few household items. To get beyond this, most people need a "starter set" of objects as a beginning point in their explorations, partially just to see what is possible, to get more proficient, and to learn techniques that can be used for other projects and still have something worthwhile to show for it.

3D Printed Science Projects fills this need with modules (projects) that combine a downloadable 3D printable object file (called an STL file) with instructions for how to use the object (for projects at home or in a classroom) and suggestions on how to create the file on some standard types of 3D printers. STL files are models that can be 3D printed on any 3D printer.

More processing (and often quite a bit of sophisticated knowledge) is required to make an STL actually print on a printer. The objects will be designed to be as easy as possible to print on a wide range of consumer printers. There are websites full of objects to print out there for free, but the quality control is minimal and there is nothing there for the most part that says what to do with them if you are exploring on your own or how to teach with them.

As an engineer and management consultant, Joan Horvath has coordinated first-of-a-kind interdisciplinary technical and business projects, helping people with no common vocabulary (startups, universities, small towns, etc). work together. Her experience as a systems engineer has spanned software development, spacecraft flight operations, risk management, and spacecraft/ground system test and contingency planning.As an educator, Joan’s passion is bringing science and technology to the non-specialist in a comprehensible and entertaining way that will stay with the learner for a lifetime.