Cadet Girl Scouts and 3D printing

Another successful night of activities. The Cadet Girl Scouts are 6th and 7th graders. I was a little worried that older girl scouts would maybe be a little less enthusiastic about engineering, technology, and 3D printing but I was worried for nothing. The girls, leaders, and parents were all very interested and engaged in the activities.


To start the meeting, I posed the question "what is an engineer and what is a technologist?" The girls gave some amazing definitions of what tasks they thought engineers completed but there were no answers for a technologist. I ended up giving my favorite description of the two career paths and then followed up with some of the work I have completed in college and while in different summer jobs. I described some of the different engineering and technology disciplines as well. A few girls raised their hands saying they would like to be an engineer one day but were unsure as to which discipline yet. I talked briefly about the engineering and technology design process and discussed how we would be talking more about the importance of sketching as communication and prototyping...mainly with a 3D printer.

The first activity was for the girls to use the sketch books I gave them and draw what was being described to them. Three girls took turns describing a sketch of a robotic dog while the remaining girls tried to draw what they were hearing. After a few laughs of showing off the drawings, I emphasized the importance of sketching as a form of communication. Since designers, engineers, and technologists often work in teams, it is much easier for a designer of a product to draw the product and show his team to prototype it rather than try to solely verbally describe it.

Next, I showed the girls several samples of 3D printed objects that show 1) how the product is built up in layers, 2) how the product can be printed with interlocking pieces, 3) how the product can be flexible, 4) how the product can be printed in several separate pieces that can be connected later, and 5) how the printer can print several different textures. To visually demonstrate how a 3D printer works, I showed them the glue gun and talked about how it heated up the glue coil and ejected the melted material out the nozzle which then cooled in the desired shape. The girls made coil pots out of playdough to demonstrate how the material is built up in layers to form a shape. Lastly, I used a slinky to demonstrate how the computer software will take a graphic design and slice it into several layers in order to make the printing pattern.

I showed the girls how I designed the charms on cubify.com, sent the graphic to the cubify software app, and then we printed a charm. While the charm was printing, the girls drew out their desired layout of the beads for their necklaces and assembled the necklaces while periodically checking on the progress of the Cube 3D printer. The girls seemed to really love all the activities and were excited to show their necklaces with the 3D printed charm to their parents, teachers, and classmates.

After the meeting, the leader told me her daughter talked about the meeting all through dinner. The leader also received a couple phone calls from parents thanking the leader for the amazing program and explaining how much fun their daughters had. All in all I would say that it was another successful troop meeting.