OpenSCAD to Create Phone Holder

thingiverse

This was a project I did with my Computer Science Class this year. We embarked on this endeavor the first week of our second semester, and by that point, my students had spent a lot of time honing their skills in C programming. My primary objective was to have students leverage the skills they'd developed in an entirely new context, which helped me gauge their mastery of computer science concepts. The First Prompt: "Use OpenSCAD to create a stand to hold your cell phone. Be sure to accommodate for your case if you have one. You can make it to hold it upright or sideways, or even design something that works for both orientations - really, make something that would work for you." I provided no instruction in the use of OpenSCAD; instead, I simply pointed them to the documentation page on the OpenSCAD website. After printing their designs, I had a second prompt: The Second Prompt: "Change your OpenSCAD code to fix any problems you discovered with your design. Additionally, you must add variables that would allow someone to easily modify your model so that it can work for any cell phone (except maybe Mr. D-F's flip phone)." Objectives: * Reinvigorate my students in their study of computer science * Gauge my students' mastery of computer science concepts already "mastered" * Provide students with a challenge that was completely new and yet within their ability Audience: This project was done with 11th and 12th graders in a Computer Science class. It could be adapted for any students who already have some programming experience. Subjects: Include any relevant subjects, i.e., science, math, etc. * Computer Science * Math - This is all about shapes and/or 3-D coordinate space Skills Learned: * Students will learn the basics of OpenSCAD * Students will learn the basics of Parametric Design * Computational Thinking Practices * Connecting Computing * Creating Computational Artifacts * Abstracting * NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas - Engineering, Technology, and Application of Science + ETS1.A: Defining and Delimiting an Engineering Problem + ETS1.B: Developing Possible Solutions + ETS1.C: Optimizing the Design Solution Lesson Plan and Activity: Introduce the activity and provide the prompt. Use OpenSCAD to create a stand to hold your cell phone. Be sure to accommodate for your case if you have one. You can make it to hold it upright or sideways, or even design something that works for both orientations - really, make something that would work for you. Explain the basics of printing on your school's machine and show them the machine in operation. Have students create simple sketches of their design ideas complete with measurements. Provide students a link to the documentation page on the OpenSCAD website and set them to work. Print and test designs. Have students share their designs with the rest of the class. Discuss different design ideas. Provide the second prompt. Change your OpenSCAD code to fix any problems you discovered with your design. Additionally, you must add variables that would allow someone to easily modify your model so that it can work for any cell phone (except maybe Mr. D-F's flip phone). Print and test designs. Duration: This took a week of class time. Preparation: Students need some familiarity with computer programming. If students have no programming experience, then you will need to spend more time working directly with students to build some basic concepts. You should also share with your students some of the limitations of 3D printing - overhangs and bridging are obvious ones, but you should also talk about size limitations. I had two designs that were incredibly big and wouldn't fit at all. Rubric and Assessment: Final Design: * Does it actually work? How stable is it? * If the design used less plastic would it still work and still be aesthetically pleasing? Computer Science Concepts: * Which computer science concepts were applied? * Were any concepts avoided that would have made the program easier to write or more efficient? * Does changing the parameters for the parametric design work, or are there bugs/edge cases?