As the school year starts with new designers, the first focus unit to learn the Design Thinking Process has been a Games Design Unit. I promise I will write about the unit in more detail but as part of the unit, I started to introduce the tools that we have available for designing. The 3D printer is a powerful tool that many times I have introduced with bubble wands or cookie cutters but this year I wanted to connect it to our game design unit while also creating an opportunity for multiple successful designs. Over the summer another educator shared this fantastic Tinkercad project created by JonathonT and I knew that I had found the right project for the right tool for the right unit. I started by introducing Tinkercad and having a day where designers just played to get familiar with the drag and drop feature. I also introduced the Maze video through a tutorial video of me following the directions that Jonathon created. |
I introduced the Criteria and Constraints for the project the next day. Designers started with the template with cover and I reminded them to go back to the Maze Video Tutorial or directions if they had questions as they were designing that the person next to them couldn't answer.