Math teachers, science teachers and engineering teachers, are you looking for a way to make your beloved disciplines more relevant to your students? Maybe even inspire a few to love them the way you do? Well, right now there is affordable new technology out there that can help you do just that! The Makerbot 3D printer and STEM BOT 3D CLASS from our own RobotsLAB.
StemBot 3D program that teaches students how to 3D print a robot, assemble it, work on the electronics, and finally program it.
Actually, 3D printers have been around since the 1980’s, but they were massive and super-expensive like the first-generation computers. Only in the last few years have they shrunk in size and dropped in price to where individual households and schools could afford them.
The Maker-bots in use in Lubbock, Texas schools serve as a good example of how 3D printers have changed: These new 3D printers take up only a little more space than a desktop printer and weigh less than 30 pounds; the price has dropped from the stratosphere to slightly less than $2000. Not much to pay for what some consider "an engineering education in a box!"
Students in the Lubbock schools have used them to construct practical things like a prosthetic hand for war veterans, keys for computer keyboards and even car parts as well as for pure fun-stuff like trains for a model railroad and coins with engraved images of superheroes. Of course all of these projects require interested, engaged students, something hard for the best teacher to inspire with only a textbook.
The STEM BOT 3D CLASS from RobotsLAB takes 3D printing to another level--Robots! With the 3D Class curriculum students can plan and develop as well as produce their own robots. The 3D Class not only guides students as they plan and construct their robots, it also shows them in real-time how the math and science relate to their project--talk about making subjects relevant!
The technology--affordable technology--is now readily available for teachers in the STEM disciplines to make their subjects more interesting and engaging to larger numbers of students--students that will be able to participate as STEM knowledge and experience inevitably come to dominate the employment sector. Maker Bot and RobotsLAB's STEM BOT 3D CLASS are two of the leaders in the burgeoning field of EdTech.