3D Printer Makerspace in Primary School

More and more, 3D printing is being used in education as a tool to teach people at all levels of learning. Teachers use 3D objects to help primary school kids grasp concepts, refine students' creative skills in high school and help them learn technical subjects at university. At that stage they’re often using them for prototyping projects – a shift to a more professional use of the Ultimaker almost identical to its use in companies in the real world.

To give you an idea just how much Ultimakers are being embraced by education we’d like to share a story of a school in the Netherlands. You’ll see just how much Ultimakers are becoming an integral part of the learning process across many subjects.

At primary school Het Slingertouw in the Netherlands, where Robin Platjouw created a makerspace for the children. Because the Ultimaker Original+ comes as a DIY package, students really engaged with the printer itself. With such a hands-on experience of building it themselves, they gained an innate understanding of how it works. This also connected them to it at an emotional level – it wasn’t just the school’s printer, it was theirs, they built it, piece by piece, screw by screw.

"Together with the children we built these printers, which for us was an essential part of the process. One of the purposes of the lab is for the children to learn that it takes a lot of technology, effort and hard work to put a device like this together. – Robin Platjouw, teacher"

 As the school teacher explains, engaging the children with 3D printing not only brings them into contact with cutting-edge technology, it prepares them for future jobs, as they learn many transferable skills along the way. And finally, their teacher made a very valid point – by bringing them into contact with open source products, they learn how important open source thinking is to innovation.

Written by Iris Smeekes, Ultimaker

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