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A Makerbot In Every Classroom
Daniel_Stuckey writes "At the start of this year, President Obama nicely summed up the grandiose promise of 3D printing — or rather, the hype surrounding it. In his State of the Union address the president suggested the fledgling technology could save manufacturing by ushering in a second industrial revolution. That shout-out inspired a spate of buzzkill blog posts pointing out — rightly enough — that despite its potential, 3D printing is still in its infancy. It's not the panacea for the struggling economy we want it to be, at least not yet. Apparently the naysayers weren't enough to kill the 3D-printing dream, because, with support from the federal government, MakerBot announced its initiative to put a 3D printer in every school in America. The tech startup and the administration are betting big that teaching kids 3D printing is teaching them the skills they'll need as tomorrow's engineers, designers, and inventors."
Caveat: Makerbot no longer produces open hardware, and they are pushing proprietary Autodesk software and educational materials as part of the free 3D printer. Makerbot also launched a call for open models of math manipulatives on Thingiverse (you might remember them from elementary school) so that teachers have something useful to print immediately.
yay
A private enterprise forcing the government to create a market for a fad toy?
That President Obama liked — so much he wanted to print it in every school.
Unless it's the corporate type.
Makerbot isn't open. They want to sell locked in 3D printers.
That's what typical headlines say. But it is HIS media, so let's see what they really say.
Headline: Obama Puts Toys in Every School
2 years from now: Kindergarteners with iPads and Makerbots print porn!
Let's play Cowboys and Indians with real guns!
Sometimes our President is not very bright.
I'd rather see a shop class in every decent sized high school in the US. Equipped with manual milling machines and lathes. WAY more useful.
We were taught to use them regularly. If they didn't suit our needs we needed to do the rest in our head. They were portable, too; though not interchangeable with other sets. They also came at no cost to the school (though I did know some kids who had only 5, at no fault of their own).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If you think you can unpack a makerbot, press the button and start printing Eiffel towers, you need to get out more.
It's definitely a DIY machine and produces more failures than successes.
For what cheap injection-molded shit sells for once it is a 'math manipulative, aligned with standards!', rather than a generic plastic toy, 3d printing them might actually save money.
I was shocked the first time I idly leafed through an educational supply catalog.
Film projectors that "stuttered"
Paper printers that jammed, ran out of ink etc...
Laptops that get dropped, crash etc..
Nothing like putting something even more complex into a teacher's classroom for them to troubleshoot.
Is 3D printing really going to help kids do math and read better? I don't recall PrintShop running on an Apple IIe making me a better reader, though I did crank out some banners...
... a glut in the high school supply of printed dildos and bongs. You heard it here first!
Since 1962 the per-pupil costs of public schools has quadrupled (inlation-adjusted — the nominal increase is 25-times!), while the results remain just as — if not even more — disappointing. Indeed, merely 30% of 8th-graders are deemed proficient in reading . Will a "makerbot" help solve this fundamental problem? Somehow I doubt it...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Makerbot also launched a call for open models of math manipulatives on Thingiverse (you might remember them from elementary school) so that teachers have something useful to print immediately.
Why are we encouraging schools to buy thousands of dollars in equipment (the 3D printer, the computer to drive it, the materials, etc - nevermind the teacher getting sent off to training seminars and whatnot) when we don't have enough textbooks for students, teachers for decades have been paying out-of-pocket for school supplies, and students are not performing well because they're hungry?
We don't need 3D printers. We need paper, chalk, textbooks, and sandwiches.
Please help metamoderate.
Feed your kids breakfast. Teach them respect for authority. Remove shiny attention-span robbers from the house. Teach them to learn first. A Makerbot just throws money at it, layers more crap on top of a rocky foundation, and kicks the can of responsibility down the road.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
We don't need 3D printers. We need paper, chalk, textbooks, and sandwiches.
What an awful slogan. How about, "Markerboards, not Makerbots!"
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
What is the difference between Obama printing money to fill his socialist dreams, and Maduro sending armed troopers in electronic stores to lower prices a gun point to give every venezuelian a cheap 50" TV set ?
Great idea. Record sales and profits for Makerbot, and a broken-down dust catcher in the corner of every classroom. Meanwhile, the teachers will still be sending notes home at the beginning of each school year asking for donations of paper, pens and pencils, and other basic supplies.
I think a makerspace in every school makes more sense. No, fossils, a makerspace is not the same thing as shop class. Teaching kids to code, work with CAD programs, and see the result print out on printers not only teaches STEM more effectively to the kids who are wired to like STEM anyway, but makes the process more accessible to kids who are, say, arty or sporty. So putting 3D printers like Fab@Home's would make more sense than MakerBot because it's more versatile, and gene-sequencing machines, centrifuges, autoclaves, and such for biohacking because future manufacturing could well be bio-based. CnC machines and lathes come into the mix as well. Lastly, dedicating a significant portion of instruction time to the makerspace rather than as an option for "kids who aren't nerdy" is the only way to cement America's place in the technological future.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
plastic penises in every classroom!
crap, I posted a obXKCD link. I feel dirty now.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Do we really need to stuff feed our kids all these fancy toys, instead of proper training for teachers and students on how to think and how to perform basic but fundamental tasks?
The proliferation of Googling in classrooms created kids that think research is about getting answers faster instead of coming up with their own answers. Guessing is less and less important since now answers are no longer blowing in the winds, they are flowing on the web. Something being correct could completely be based on "I googled it!". Those kids are like chickens on a farm getting all they need in a cage without ever step away from the computer. Don't tell me it's OK because we adults do this all the time -- do you let your kids watch (let along participate in) sex in action when they are young? Habits formed at younger age tend to have longer and more significant effects on their brains.
What would having this kind of things in classrooms give us? I don't know. Maybe more tendency of not caring about things -- more of the throwing-away mentality, maybe? With a push of button, as long as I have the files, I will be able to get whatever I desire. Now the cage just get slightly smaller for those poor chickens.
I don't know, it all seems to be the wrong priorities.
You Luddite! You're just terrified and afraid of new technology, grandad! People will 3D print paper, chalk, textbooks and sandwiches! They'll just download them! Woooo! Technology!
I'm extremely impressed that 3d printers will be seen as the economic boon they actually will be, instead of the Luddite approach of crying that it will kill thousands of manufacturing jobs - which it will, of course, but that doesn't mean at all that it will be a net economic negative.
Although the problems with closed-source Makerbot printers and proprietary software from Autodesk are standard /. fare, I think the real issue with the 3d printing hype is how disconnected people are from actually making things themselves without the use of CNC equipment.
I think it's also why people are so obsessed with food, it is the only DIY thing most people do anymore.
I worry about the fumes of a makerbot in the poorly ventilated classrooms in many schools.
At least if they put the 3D-printers in a shop class, they surely have better airflow.
3D Printers are the future.
I just got two Wifi parabolic reflectors made to order. $6.50 at the local library.
I really like the way you used the pejorative phrase "inspired a spate of buzzkill blog posts" to describe fact and reality. Let me guess, you're one of these hopey changey types that thinks that if we just think positive thoughts then they alone will change the reality of the situation?
Reporting facts and stating obvious reality is not a buzzkill, unless it is an idiot that is buzzing in a fantasy world.
I wouldn't want a makerbot in a classroom, unless it was placed in an active ventilation container. There have been numerous articles regarding the toxic emissions that 3D printers put out when the plastic is melted. Not safe.
Just wait until a kid prints a gun at school...
This'll be about as successful as getting a laptop to every student. Now, 3D printers in, say, shop class in middle/high school? Much more reasonable.
My high school had a 1 million dollar computer lab gifted to it. That was quite a bit in 1990s money considering that I had a graduating class of under 40! The problem was that the only teacher who knew anything about computers was the band teacher. He was good, don't get me wrong but his musical love/responsiblities came first and he didn't really have time to teach computer class. After he struggled to fit in a programming class for 1 semester he realized he couldn't do it. After that about the most advanced thing in the room was Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing!
Maybe school teachers are more techically proficient today? I doubt it! Even if they are.. with all the finiky settings that go into getting a 3d printer to work right, and all the failure prone parts that go into one... I don't see how this can possibly work!
The point isn't to teach them how to print as much as it is to teach them how to design.
But, I'm guessing you already knew that.
I wouldn't say 'idiotic' -- I believe you don't need to fix all the problems in the world before you're allowed to do new things. That said, I come from a family of teachers, and that insight leads me to agree with you. I'm especially offended by teachers buying school supplies out of pocket. If I, an employee of a large organization, had to buy office supplies out of pocket, I'd assume the company was on its way down the toilet or at the very least had major management problems. Teachers are somehow conditioned to think having to buy supplies for your classroom and your students/customers is o.k... or they have too much empathy. Again, there's no reason you can't have both makerbots AND fix these problems, but my experience is that investment from technical companies and press celebrate enrichment in either a few affluent schools or in the one poor school that has the luck of being the example case. Meanwhile, there are plenty of schools remaining without enough pens and paper, let alone current generation computers, ipads, makerbots, etc....
Look, scoff all you want, but here at the UW we can now use 3D printers to literally print compostable objects using the same "plastic" we use to make forks and spoons and plates from that are compostable - to grow more food.
Think about it.
Reusable chairs and tables that can be composted. Fashion footwear you can throw in the yard waste bin to be turned back into food when they're out of fashion.
You really don't get it, do you.
(follow the UW links for Sustainable products at green.washington.edu if you don't get that)
The Green Revolution 3 is here. And it's happening whether you want it to or not.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Given my experiences with regular printers in High Schools, (tracking down some random student who had printed a few dozen pages of profanity to a shared printer), I'd imagine there will be a proliferation of many "interesting" phallic-shared objects coming through these printers...
Let's start by getting proper pay for and hiring more teachers.
These fabricator things can be a great learning tool **For a quaified teacher to use**....it's not really on the radar for most schools right now.
Most schools are busy figuring out which teachers to lay off b/c of unnecessary budget cuts.
To the point above about "makerbots"
It is definitely hype. It's embarassing b/c essentially its the same thing as that plastic mold machine at tourist attractions that can make you a plastic souvenier of the Washington Monument.
Fabricator technology has improved greatly, but only in the commercial/industrial usage areas.
It **will** eventually reach the consumer level but now it is far,, far from it.
I **hate** tech hype! Wastes BILLIONS.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I can't count the number of friends that I have that have no idea how to change a flat, check oil levels, check tire pressure or even add windshield washer fluid, or even change a burned out tail-light bulb." Their response is always, "I'll call AAA, the tires don't look flat, that's what the oil changes are for..."
When I asked my parents to sign an application for a learner's permit they told me they would be happy to do so after I demonstrated that I could check tire pressure, add air and change a tire; check and add oil, radiator fluid and wiper fluid. Later my Dad made me learn to drive a manual transmission. My regular car while learning was an automatic and I tested in this car but my Dad had me drive a manual a little bit too. He didn't recommend getting manual, he just thought I should know how to drive one just in case.
My parents liked AAA but they didn't believe in being dependent upon it. That AAA should be more of a convenience and not a necessity.
many "interesting" phallic-shared objects coming
That's a hell of a Freudian slip there phorm.
anything else that might offend somebody....
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Use the 3D printer to print the paper, chalk, textbooks and sandwiches. Duh!
Your first link refers to the U.S. Department of education which began operation in 1980.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education
Missing from the data are the years 1962-1970. If you compare the second entry in the table, 1970-1971, to the last, 2008-2009, the claim falls from "quadrupled" to "doubled".
Watch a game show from the 1960s or 1970s and you will begin to realize that the price of everything has gone way up. nothing to see here.
The second link fails to define "proficient", which is actually a moving target. There are ridiculous claims made all the time. For instance:
"A report recently published by Harvard University's Program on Education Policy and Governance found that students in Latvia, Chile and Brazil are making gains in academics three times faster than American students," - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/us-students-still-lag-beh_n_1695516.html
Fails to mention the starting and ending points of these students, or how they were able to make an apples-to-apples comparison. You may learn something from this Monty Python sketch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhtfizONYOc
The reality is that you are fishing for blurbs to support your paradigm instead of taking the time to understand a complex reality.
Makerbot/Thingiverse also deletes designs for products they don't like, so they can go to hell. Of course, their behavior resulted in an all-too-predictable Streisand effect, so it was actually quite beneficial in a strange way, but that doesn't change my opinion of them.
Liberty in your lifetime
If Obama thinks it's a good idea then it's pretty clear from experience that it is *not* a good idea.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Makerbot's track record looks pretty bad so far: http://makezine.com/review/make-ultimate-guide-to-3d-printing/replicator-2/#comment-1778498
I don't know where the hell you are from, but here, in **America** its the FREE MARKET
If teachers were paid their true free market value, educators would be on the same level as doctors and lawyers.
Thank you Dave Raggett
When that happens you can come back in your time machine and laugh at us. Maybe you could bring me a perpetuum mobile as gift to soften the blow. I'm sure they'll have them figured out by then.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
caused by these things? I'm not sure I would want my kids around that. Or are they planning to completely enclose the device and filter the air after the build is complete?
I, for one, welcome our new Makerbot overlords.
It's way too soon for these to matter. Maker Bots are still in a very early stage. Using them for this application now will do no good. Waste of money, time, and effort.