A.W.A. // Make your tools “yours”

thingiverse

This is an inclusive open project that empowers everyone to create a personalized hand tool and more. We designed some essential elements and uploaded them on Tinkercad as STL files, which can be adapted to meet individual needs and combined into unique products that are printed with ease. We see this project as a bridge between a game and a way to enhance daily activities in education. If you're an expert 3D user, you can create your own piece, upload it, and contribute to the Project! We hope to see new base elements and designs shared online. I'm part of a team that designed this project with my dear friend and colleague Gabriele. We wanted to find the best way to combine 3D printing with educational needs and personalization. Nowadays, it's easy to approach online modeling software and 3D printing with basic computer skills; we think combining these two elements is a great way to help educators and students. We started by brainstorming, then sketching and mixing the first elements of this project. We selected some of them and created a list of parts to model and main features to achieve. Some of these features include easy-to-print objects with flat edges and no critical overhangs, easy-to-combine objects with standard surfaces that improve affordance and mixing, and inclusive components that satisfy many disabled users' needs. To add a third dimension to our sketches, we used Autodesk Inventor Pro. By modeling each piece alone and trying to combine it into assemblies, we were able to upgrade the parts and decide their final shape. We've been inspired by Empire State Building + MakerEd Project and some other things on Thingiverse, such as the Finger Wrench. So, we might be using a similar philosophy or shape, but the core of this project, its results, objectives, and mission are totally different. Project: A.W.A. // Make your tools "yours" Objectives: * Create a tool ready to be used and suitable for various students' activities. * Learn to use a simple software that's perfect for introducing the world of 3D modeling. * Explore the potential of 3D printing in bringing something from digital to real-world. * Inspire students to think creatively and make their own decisions. Steps: 1. The educator chooses one or more manual activities to perform with the students. 2. Students, guided by the teacher, define a tool or tools that they'd like to use to achieve the results of the workshop. 3. 2-4 students group in front of a computer and create a Tinkercad account. They then start looking at the possibilities given by the basic elements online and sketch and design their own pieces on paper. 4. The students create singular models by working alternatively, merge them into a single file, scale and adapt to suit student needs, then group to form the final model. 5. The educator can help students correct the shape and guide them to a better result. The final object is ready for print. With the finished products, students can now perform the initial task and achieve the desired results. By the way, students can be asked to realize just one item per person and be guided in the thinking process analyzing pros and cons of their ideas and methods. This kind of process, which is very similar to a workshop, can be realized in any type of school and with almost any age of students. We see another possibility of use that's likely to become true in Art & Design schools and universities, where students realize their own tools to suit perfectly their needs and make comfortable long operation tasks. This second approach doesn't necessarily start from an educator and is more likely to be a personal need than a class topic. At the end of the workshop, students have realized their products, tested them, and used them. This helps them understand their thinking strengths and weaknesses. They also worked in teams, which can be helpful for fully evaluating all conditions and learning as much as possible. The educator can grade students not only for their ability to perform the task but for every aspect of planning and realizing the product.