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About the Course
3D Printing is a 5 day course, where the student spends around half a day building and tuning their printer, then spend the remainder of the week learning CAD to create a variety of projects which they then print on their own printer. They take their printer and printed items home at the end of the course, along with all of their design files.
The course is open to all ages (9-17) and as such has 2 'strands' for the CAD design part of the course:
- The Junior students (up to age 12/13) learn CAD on Tinkercad, an online platform designed for younger students to easily create 3D designs. Whilst it might look simple from the outset, it is entirely possible to create some very advanced stuff! They also spend some time on Solidworks Apps, a great kid-friendly tool for designing more complex organic bodies and forms.
- The Senior students (13+) use Autodesk Fusion 360, a professional CAD package that is about as good as it gets these days! Luckily it is free for educational use. Almost all of the students will start on (and stay with) the standard senior course for the week.
- Seniors - Product Design: These are advanced Projects, for those who might have used it at school, with us on a previous camp, or those who get through the simple projects very quickly. For a camper to start straight away on the advanced projects, they must have either (ideally) done 3D printing with us last year or at Easter, or already be VERY good at Fusion 360 from using it at school etc. If a student excels at the basic tutorials and has thoroughly completed all of the projects with plenty of time left in the course, they can move on to these more advanced projects (at your discretion).
- The age boundary between the first two is somewhat lenient - if a 12 year old is finding Tinkercad very easy/boring feel free to switch them to Fusion, and vice versa. Whilst a 10 year old should probably never be put onto the Fusion course, we will leave it to your judgement to decide if campers are allowed to move or not - this could possibly be a day into the course as well.
The aim is to get the students to:
- Learn about 3D printing in general and the different types of printers
- Learn how to build one from a complex kit, how it works and how to repair and fix it
- Learn CAD using Fusion 360/Tinkercad/Solidworks Apps
- Learn what considerations need to be made when designing parts for 3D printing
- Gain some basic product design and sketching skills
Health and Safety
There are two main safety issues with this course:
Mains Electricty
The printers are relatively safe, but are powered from the mains. There are several things to consider here:
- Do not allow the campers to power on the printer for the first time before you have checked their wiring - 90% of it is pre-done so there should be a very minimal chance of hazards/injury, but it never hurts to be cautious.
- As with all mains items, do not allow the campers, yourself, or anybody to work on the printer wiring (mains or otherwise) whilst the printer is plugged in and powered on.
- You MUST check the correct voltage is set on the power supply (220v NOT 110V) before the printer is powered on, otherwise the power supply will be instantly destroyed!
- Before the campers take home their printers at the end of the course, you must conduct a visual inspection of the wiring to ensure nothing is obviously wrong (or about to go wrong) before we send them home - please see this guide for a list of things to look for.
Heating elements in the printers
- The printers have several heating elements in order to function, the most dangerous of which is the main hotend where the plastic comes out, which can easily get to over 200 degrees during a print. You must point this out to the campers and make them aware of what to do if they do accidentally touch it (run it under cold water for at least 10 minutes), and where the nearest source of running water is. They should not be putting their hands inside the printer whilst it is printing anyway so this should be fairly unlikely, however make them aware that the hotend takes a while to cool down after a print has finished so they should be extra careful when removing prints.
- These printers also have hotends that are quite well covered, so it is in fact very difficult to touch the end during a print due to the very small gap.
- The printers also have a heated bed, which generally gets to around 60 degrees during printing. This is obviously less dangerous as it is cooler, however touching the metal pieces exposed around the edge of the build surface could still hurt. As it says on the build surfaces, campers should wait at least 10 minutes for the bed to cool down after a print before removing it.
Please Also See:
General Workshops Risk Assessment
The Kit List
Student consumables (per student to take home at the end)
Everyone:
- 1 x Creality Ender 3 Printer Kit
- 1 x reel of PLA (1kg), to use during the course and take home with the printer
- Large bag for taking any extra parts home in
- 10 Sheets of paper each for sketching ideas
- USB Stick
- Course Badge
- Junior/Senior stamp card as appropriate
- 1 x Headphones
Advanced Seniors:
- 1x Nijaflex sample spool (~10m only) - do not give more than this! (£££)
- 50mm Bit Set with Magnetic Bit Extension for Screwdriver project
- 5x Screws (for screwdriver project)
- Sketchbook
Seniors:
- Drinks can and straw for assistive technology project (straw holder)
- Bulb and lampholder for lamp project
- Skyscraper puzzles printout sheet for skyscraper project
Juniors:
- Dowel for stamp pad
- Ink Pad
Student tools (one each, not to take home)
- 1 x Pencil
- Printer tools kit - comes inside printer box
Student tools (one per pair, not to take home)
- 30cm ruler
- Rubber
- Pencil sharpener (1 between 4)
- Calipers (1 between 4)
- File Set (1 between 4)
- Felt tips set (1 between 8)
General class kit
- 2 x 5m extension leads per 8 campers (for printers)
- 2 x 4 way power boards per 8 campers + 2 extra (for printers)
- 100 extra sheets of A4 paper
- Hot melt glue gun, and 1 glue stick/8 campers
- Spare pack of small and large cable ties (packs of 100)
- 1 Knife
- 4 pairs pliers for tightening belts
- 2 Large red screwdrivers (for emergencies)
- Double sided tape for stamp project
- Sandpaper board
- 3D Pens (1 per junior)
- 2 spare pencils
- Set of dry wipe markers
- Permanent pen (for naming bags etc.)
- Roll of bubble wrap for packing printers for transport if necessary
- Roll of gaffer tape for packing up printers if necessary
- Roll of paper towel
- Roll of bin bags for packaging and cardboard
Pre-Camp Setup (By Tech Camp)
- Print Skyscraper puzzle sheets (2x double sided 120gsm sheets stapled together)
- Setup accounts for juniors on Solidworks Apps
Student Logins
All students will need to login to this online system to access the course material. They can login using the following details (everyone logs into the same account):
Username: 3dprinting@techcamp.org.uk
Password: techcamp
To access the advanced senior content, they will need to login with:
Username: 3dprintingadvanced@techcamp.org.uk
Password: techcamp
This login should only be given to students who are eligible for the advanced course (see above).
They can continue to login with these details to access the material at home after the course if they want to.
IT Systems Check
- Chrome is installed
- Fusion 360 installed and fires up
- Latest Cura version is installed and fires up
- Student login works for this website
- All videos work in the student guide
- Check following websites are available:
- courses.techcamp.org.uk
- autodesk.com
- youtube.com
- tinkercad.com
- thingiverse.com
- beta.swappsforkids.com
System requirements for Autodesk Fusion 360
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 (64-bit only)
CPU: 64-bit processor (32-bit not supported)
Memory: 3GB RAM (4GB or more recommended)
Graphics Card: 512MB GDDR RAM or more, except Intel GMA X3100 cards
Preparing Yourself
Like any practical course you'll find this much easier to teach if you have run through it yourself as completely as possible first. Even if you're experienced with 3D printing and CAD this will allow you to find out which parts of the course are tricky. Also, when we're running a course for the first few times there may be the occasional mistake or parts of instructions that are not clear and this is a great way of identifying them.
As a minimum, you'll need to:
- Read through this guide completely and be comfortable with it
- Read through this guide again! A huge amount of work has gone into it so make sure you're really confident how the course should be run, and things to watch out for.
- Read through all of the students' guides to see how all the practical sessions work.
- Get very comfortable using Fusion 360/Tinkercad/Solidworks Apps, and practice making all of the projects in the guide - try going off piste with some of the designs as well if you can, as the campers certainly will and will ask you to help them do it!
As a tutor you will not be able to build a printer yourself as the kits are quite expensive and we don't want lots of built printers sitting around. However, please carefully read through the printer build instructions as they are not the simplest thing in the world, and try to get your head around how all of the pieces fit together!
At the start of each session, and certainly at the start of each new main section of the course or if everyone is getting stuck on the same thing, you will need to do a short tutor-led section at this point to the class. For example, at the start of the first session there is a general presentation (which we have prepared for you) for you to deliver on different types of 3D printing and the science behind them. You'll need to run through your delivery of these parts of the course a couple of times - ideally out loud, but at least in your head. If you are working with more than one tutor, you will want to decide between yourselves how to split the tasks/explanations in this initial part of the lesson.
Tutor Training Day
When you arrive for the tutor training day (at Winchester this will be before the students arrive, for other camps it will be a number of weeks before the first camp), we will go through some general things (like child protection training), but the bulk of the day will be on preparing yourself for teaching the course.
What will I receive?
If you are working at a non-residential venue, we will attempt to send a printer out to you if we can so you can experiment - you will be notified of this well in advance. As always for Tech Camp courses, you will need to bring any equipment we send out to you back to the office on the training day. There will also be plenty of time to use the printers during the training day itself - see below for more details.
If you are working at a residential venue, you will not receive anything prior to the course and will have a printer to try out during the first few days when you arrive at camp.
How will we check that you are prepared?
We will expect you to:
- Explain to us some of the concepts in the tutor guide - i.e. you need to be able to tell us how the course is organised, what some of the important points are about safety and efficiently operating the courses, and be able to answer questions about these things intelligently!
- We'll ask you to show us some of your designs you have made in Fusion 360, including the advanced senior projects - hopefully you will have come up with a few original takes on the stock designs!
- We will expect you to be competent in the general usage of the printer if we have sent one out to you, including basic troubleshooting, bed levelling etc.
What will we show you?
- If you haven't been sent one already, we'll bring along a printer and give you the chance to try printing some things on it, and look at how it is put together
- We will give you some pointers on printer operation, debugging and handy tips and tricks
Any additional time will be spent practising printing and try out the printer, and if the training day is immediately before the commencement of the course (i.e. at Winchester), organising supplies, and getting things ready.
Pre-course Setup
If at all possible and you have enough space without moving computers around (or you are using laptops), having a spare desk next to each computer where the printer can be built and used would be preferable, as the instructions for building the printer are online. This effectively gives each student a 'double desk', half for the computer and half for the printer. If this is not possible, having a separate printer and computer area is workable but campers will be moving around a lot when building and using the printer to look at the instructions on the screen, which is not ideal.
If working in a classroom without computers (when using Tech Camp laptops) it is important that there are no trip hazards caused by laptop, printer and extension lead cables. Generally if you have choice of classroom layout you will want to have the tables around the perimeter of the classroom, or at least small rows of tables coming out directly from sides of the classrooms (no side aisles) so that any cables can come from the wall to the tables without crossing a walkway.
For each student, set out:
- 1 x Printer Kit (all assembly tools are contained in each kit already)
- 1 x USB stick by each computer
The other components for different projects and tasks should be handed out when needed by each individual camper, or at the start of the appropriate session. This both saves time in producing all the kits beforehand but also gives you an opportunity to interact with the students, explaining what particular parts are, etc.
Tech Camp Work Saving Policy
To minimise the possibility of lost files and work, and reduce the impact of campers losing their memory stick after the course, please follow these guidelines:
- Campers should create a folder in 'My Documents' on the computer they are working on for the week, and rename it to their full name
- They should use this as their working directory for the week, working from it and saving all of the things they make/use in that folder
- At the end of the week they should then just copy the entire folder onto their memory stick to take home
- This folder should be left on the machine after camp (machines are either imaged specially for us or we have our own logins depending on venue)
- This way, if a camper loses a memory stick after they leave there is a chance we can get their data back by just looking on the computer they were working on.
Rules for Students
- Students must always observe the safety rules you lay out at the start concerning mains electricity (see above in safety section)
- If they lose components they must find them! It's very easy for small components to be dropped, so looking around the work space (and on the floor) should be the first thing done when they claim not to have something. We have limited/no spares.
- The printers are semi-fragile, and each person has their own worth a considerable amount of money. Do not touch or fiddle with anybody else's printer, especially whilst they are printing.
Guidelines for Tutors
Running a practical course like this is always tricky, but this course has some moments that you'll want to watch out for ...
- For some students this might be their first experience of such a complex kit or using a 3D CAD program, so they need some direct instructions and some close supervision when they first start out.
- Don't give 'spare' components out to students - the supplied kit list should be stuck to.
- They each have their own bag for keeping their finished project in - make sure they keep things in it so they don't get lost!
- There are thousands of parts in total in each classroom running this course - it is imperative that classrooms are kept as tidy as possible (ideally tidied after every session) so that things don't get lost, and any offcuts/fragments of PLA are put in the bin straight away to avoid getting trodden into carpet.
- As always, if anything gets broken, flag it up to the Technical Manager as soon as possible so that spares can be checked if needed.
- You have been provided with a sharpie for marking the names on each student's equipment. Please do this!
- A key thing with this course is to make sure that students fully complete each design to the best of their ability, trying to add their own ideas instead of just following through the videos/instructions and trying to get things done as fast as possible. If they do this they will run out of material quickly which will cause you problems - there is more than enough to last over a week but only if they complete it properly! Your tool to keep track of this is the stamp card - each student only gets a stamp once they have finished (and made a good effort at) the 3D model for each project, and another stamp when they have also done a successful print. This stops them rushing ahead as they will wish to collect all of the stamps, and also allows you to easily keep track of everyone's progress.
- Sometimes at Winchester, you need to plug the headphones into the computers before booting up, otherwise the sound won't work at all (will have a red cross in taskbar and not output until you reboot with headphones plugged in).
Useful Files and Links
Bed Levelling GCode File (send direct to printer without Cura)
Simple Cube STL file for testing
Build Tips
We suggest you summarise some of these points to the campers at the appropriate times during the build process, to save yourself saying them to everyone individually as they make mistakes!
- Double check all of the screws are the correct diameter and length for each step.
- Make sure all of the cables are routed such that the moving parts are not going to catch on them - you can move the bed and x axis by hand to check this
- Make sure all the screws are nice and tight, so they don't rattle loose whilst printing
- BELTS - it is crucial that these are as tight as possible! You must check every belt on every printer for tightness - campers (especially younger ones) are very prone to not tightening them well despite multiple prompts in the instructions, which leads to bery sloppy prints and even shifted layers if they are very loose and skipping teeth.
One of the most common issues to have when first assembling the printer is that the z-axis will not go up and down smoothly, and instead the motor just makes a 'grinding' sound as if it is stuck. This is generally caused by the horizontal piece of aluminium extrusion that makes up the x axis not being perpendicular to the frame, which causes the vertical z-axis leadscrews to bind as they are not running true. Some strategies to fix this:
- First look sideways on at the frame - you can usually see by eye if the axis is not straight to the frame
- Check ALL of the bolts are properly done up, especially the ones underneath the base that hod the verticals in place and the ones on the top bar. If there are gaps because they haven't been tightened properly the frame will not be square.
- If that doesn't fix the problem, you can try loosening the brass leadscrew nut that the vertical screw is threaded through - this will give a bit of play which sometimes stops the binding from occurring
- The other common cause for this is the vertical rollers being extremely tight on the vertical extrusion - you (or the camper) probably had a very hard time getting the wheels over the top of the vertical struts. Whilst the wheels should be fairly tight to avoid slop in the system and get accurate prints, they don't want to be too tight! Luckily, all of the wheels are mounted on off-centre shafts, which can be adjusted - simply get a spanner and turn the hexagon shaft behind one of the wheels. That will slightly move the centre of the wheel to give you more (or less) gap for the extrusion to fit through. This technique can also be used to tighten runners that are sloppy or loose.
Printing Tips
It would be wise to run through these once most campers have finished the build, so they don't all make the same mistakes.
- Bed levelling is really very critical. Assuming printer is assembled well and nuts, bolts and belts are tight, once is has been levelled it should be fine for many prints assuming excessive force is not applied to the bed. The bed should be relevelled if prints fail, or whenever the printer is moved or worked on.
- It is critical that the belt on the x axis is as tight as possible – use pliers to pull the pulley as tight as you can and then fix it in place. It can help for someone else to assist so you have enough hands. The belt should be tight enough to make a sound if you pluck it like a guitar string. Loose belts will give poor quality prints with a wavy surface and can even skip and ruin a print if really loose, and significantly limit your max workable print speed.
Using the 3D Pens
These allow the students to freeform create their own designs from plastic. It is possible to actually draw in 3D if you do it very slowly and blow at the same time, however the best method is generally to create 2D sections on the desk, peel them off and then stick them together to create 3D objects. For example, you can create an Eiffel Tower by making 4 sides and then sticking them together in 3D. If they don't have any ideas, they can use the laminated ideas sheets to draw onto and then peel off. There are enough for 1 per camper and a few spares if you need to fix any that clog up (see below). Before using the pen, use the blue masking tape to cover and area of desk for them to draw on so that the surface is not damaged.
Guidelines for tutors:
- Keep the pens in the stands as much as possible when they are not in use (and encourage the campers to do so as well) - this makes it less likely that the filament yet to be melted will come into contact with a hot pen tip and be melted/destroyed
- Cut off small sections of filament from the reels to use in the pens - only a few metres at a time is fine. The pens should never feed filament directly off of a reel. Keep any pre-cut parts in a tutor only area - campers should not get these themselves.
- Generally, when the pens get blocked there is a small piece of filament in the end.
- Heat the pen up, then us a screwdriver to push in the black tabs at the tip and remove the black cover.
- Carefully use pliers on the black mount of the heating element and tip to remove it.
- There will usually be a piece of filament sticking out now – grab it with a pair of pliers and pull it out.
- Reassemble and this fixes 95% of broken pens (and this does happen quite a lot)
- If pen won’t feed filament out of back of pen, heat up then press the release button and pull hard with a pair of pliers on the filament, this will usually release it.
- If the black shield on the end keeps coming off, or won't clip back on after being taken off to fix a blockage, gently heat each tab with a soldering iron at around 300 degrees, and bend them outwards carefully. The tip should now clip on nicely. Ask the Technical Manager/Manager to borrow a soldering iron from the emergency toolkit.
- Anything else broken generally involves disassembly and swapping out parts – back white section can be removed by prying with a flathead screwdriver and everything else inside is obvious how it comes apart.
- “ERR” on the screen either means the heating element isn’t plugged or has a faulty connection, or the heating element is bust completely
- Please inform the Technical Manager of any pens deemed unfixable (they are Chinese and this may well happen to don't worry - this is why there are 2 spare pens).
Guidelines for students:
- Don’t touch the hot end (sink and tap will be available if they do, but it isn’t that bad unless you try and stab yourself with it)
- Press the down button, plastic will come out of the nozzle
- You can adjust the speed using the slider
- Don’t press the top button – (this will eject the filament to change colour, but takes ages and should only be done by tutors only)
- Place the pen back in the stand when you are finished
- If you want a different colour, swap with someone else of find a spare pen with that colour in
- Hold the tip of the pen very close to or even touching the page, this will make the plastic stick to the laminated sheet
- It works well if you outline the designs, and then shade them in like you would with a normal pen - they can sketch on the tape with a pencil first to give themselves a guide
- If they are stuck for ideas, use Google image search to get some inspiration
Troubleshooting Tips
This is a (by no means exhaustive) list of things that can go wrong with the printers, and how to fix them. Again, it might be worth showing the class as a whole some of these tips that a relevant to everyone (for example how to level the bed and change filament) at the start of a session. Before campers leave at the end, give them a brief chat about what to do if things go wrong at home: tell them that things will break, but hopefully they have learnt how to fix a lot of the common problems during the course, and the printer is a very popular model that has lots of free troubleshooting help readily available, after a quick Google search.
- If the first layer is sticking not given enough time to cool and gets dragged around (still happens when the bed is levelled) then you can slow down the print for the first layer in Cura, to get better adhesion.
- If the PLA is flowing but sticking to the side of the nozzle there are two possibilities. The nozzle can be dirty - preheat PLA and (carefully) with a damp cloth clean the nozzle off. Alternatively the bed is too far from the nozzle – level the bed.
- If a motor is not moving correctly, check all connections, if there is a loose connection it will not work when more power is needed for a large acceleration.
- If PLA is coming out when preheating before a print, this means the motor is still putting pressure on the filament in the nozzle. It doesn’t matter too much, but try and use some tweezers to grab any plastic that has leaked out just before the printing starts, so it doesn’t affect the first layer at all.
Levelling the Bed
- Home the machine
- Turn it off (For the best results, preheat the PLA and do the following steps with the machine still on, however you must be sure not to touch the hot end)
- Using the paper method, put a piece of paper between the bed and the nozzle at a corner of the bed
- Raise or lower the corner bed you are at until there is some resistance on the paper. It should not move freely, and not be stuck entirely – there should be a small amount of friction when you try to move the paper around.
- Do this for the other three corners
- Turn on the machine and home
- Print the bed levelling test file from the SD card
- As the machine is printing, carefully make small adjustments if required to each corner to tweak the bed. The printer should produce a slightly squashed bead of plastic all the way around the bed, which is adhered well to the print bed (try brushing over it carefully with a finger – if it moves the nozzle is too high).
Running the Sessions
The course is split into roughly two halves:
- Building and testing the printer (first 1/2 day ish) - remember You MUST check the correct voltage is set on the power supply (220v NOT 110V) before the printer is powered on, otherwise the power supply will be instantly destroyed!
- Learning CAD in Fusion 360/Tinkercad/Solidworks Apps using a series of 3D printing projects (~4.5 days)
As with all courses, there are 2 sessions in the morning and two in the afternoon. The course is written in such a way that it doesn't really matter if some are further ahead than others. There should be more than enough projects to keep even the most able busy for the week (and if not they can probably come up with their own ideas to design), and if others do not finish all of the projects they can easily continue working at home. At Easter camp especially there is one day less of course time, so most (if not all) campers will probably not get to the end of all of the projects. In essence, they should follow each guide on the online system in order and see how far they get. Try to make sure campers don't skip projects, especially on the Junior and Senior Beginner projects, as they each teach how to use a different tool/skill that they will need to complete the later projects. The most important thing is that every camper goes home with a working printer, knows how to use it and fix it, and is able to demonstrate some basic skills on Fusion 360/Tinkercad/Solidworks Apps.
At the start of the first session on the first day, we suggest the following
- Tutors introduce themselves / kids introduce themselves
- Tutors do quick presentation on different types of 3D printers - download presentation here, and presentation notes here.
- Explain what they will cover in the 3D printing course and get them excited - they will:
- Build their own printer
- Learn how to tune it and print models
- Learn how it works and how to troubleshoot it
- Learn professional 3D design using Fusion 360/Tinkercad
- Complete a range of exciting 3D modelling projects to take home, and print them on their printer
- Run through the guidelines at the start of the first guide on building their printer
- Show them how the online documentation system works
- Tell them how to login and get them started building their kits
Extension Challenges
There should be plenty to keep the students occupied in this course. If anyone does manage to finish all of the projects, they will probably have come up with some of their own ideas already that they might want to try modelling and printing. If they don't have any ideas, a good place to start is some extra parts to improve their printer! Some ideas:
- Filament guide to guide the filament into the extruder
- Electronics board cover
- Tools holder
- Anything else they can think of they want to improve!
Packing Up
Campers should be aware of how large their printer is and have made any arrangements required for transporting it home in advance of the course - this is made very clear during the booking process and on the website. It would be wise to find out if any campers are going by train/plane in advance of the last session, to make sure you have enough time to help them pack up their printer as necessary, following the instructions below.
If campers are going home by car, by far the best option is to and carry the whole printer as is straight to the car. It can be easier to heat up the printer and remove the filament if you can. It is best to pickup printers underneath the top beam with 1 hand to move them easily.
If they are going home by train or plane, and have not brought an second large case to take their printer home in, the best thing is to disassemble it again almost completely and put it back in the cardboard box - so make sure you don't throw them all away at the start! If they are going by train they might get away with partial disassembly and some tape/cardboard, but if they intend to take it on a flight as hand luggage, the original cardboard box is the right size and weight for this. Once they have assembled it once, they should be able to put it back together in only around 45 minutes/1 hour, and can use the online instructions to do so, or the paper instructions that come with the printer. Make sure they start doing this packup at least 1-1.5 hours before they need to leave camp so it is not a mad rush for you to help them finish on time.
Your supplies should always be packed up as neatly as they came! This means:
- Components are in labelled bags, and grouped in bigger bags
- There should be no bags of unsorted components
- The printer kits are extremely reliable and durable, and in theory it should be very unlikely for any parts to be broken at all. If you do need spares, please inform the Technical Manager immediately so that we can keep as many whole kits as possible.
If any components are broken they should be clearly labelled. Generally inexpensive components do not need to be kept and returned but if there are problems with things that are more expensive, they do need to be kept and clearly labelled so that we can either organise replacements or investigate what went wrong / how to prevent similar issues occurring in the future. Make sure every camper goes home with the right printer and all of the projects, and only the tools that came with the printer!