EAST Bone Builder
In EAST this semester, Ella Layton has been making an educational board game for the younger students at Valley View. This game will make learning about the skeleton fun. Students will learn the names of the major bones and where they go. The best part of this game is a bunch of 3D printed bones that will connect to each other by a system of hooks and loops. Throughout the process of making this game, she has seen how great 3D printing is. She also used a software called Cura to get the bones ready to print. The files taken from Cura go onto a very small SD card which inserts into the printer. These files tell the extruder exactly what to do to print a skull instead of a femur.
3D printers work by heating up a plastic filament called PLA to where it is almost melted. That goes through the nozzle and onto the heated bed, and adhesive build plate. The plastic cools very quickly so a print can be taken off the build plate right after it has finished printing. After printing a model, she takes off the supports that have printed too. About the only way to do this is to use a pair of pliers to get the larger supports off, and then use a soldering iron, a very hot piece of metal, to melt the plastic and smooth it out. Our EAST used a soldering iron to fix the prints the mess up. She plans on giving her game to the 5th grade science teachers when all of the bones finish printing, probably early next school year, and putting it on Kickstarter. 3D printing is an amazing process that will be used more in the future, and she recommends people trying it when they get a chance.
By: Ella Layton