brooklyn tech is a pretty amazingplace. it's a specialized high school here in new york city. they really specialize in pumping out engineer-ready students. my name is tom curanovic and i'm the seniormechanical engineering instructor here at brooklyn technical high school.
3d printing service bay area, when i started here about two years agothe course were specifically geared towards computer numerical controlledmachinery and in the last 12 months we've beenmaking drastic changes towards rapid prototyping specifically with the makerbot.
we're ableto get through more material, the students are able to absorb moremanufacturing related knowledge. they're able to check their parts andverify designs probably in the same class period verseson the traditional methods we were doing about two years agothey would have to wait a day or two or sometimes by the end of the week. the makerbot and the new era of rapidprototyping and the vast accessibility is opening up thefield of engineering as a whole. we're seeing a lot more interest fromall sorts of students starting as early
as freshman year. one of my students, vishnu sanigepalli is in my afternoon class and the firstthing he did was he said, "hey what does that little black box do?" from kindergarten to eleventh gradeeverything was on a piece of paper. that kind of set me off when i went to engineering where you usually don't get what you expected. i'm vishnu sanigepalli. i'm currently a senior at brooklyn tech high school. i just started working on the 3d printer, first thing. as the first product came in, i was more and moreintrigued on how to create more projects.
the design process that i noticed in him just blossomed tenfold. right away he was more involved in the mechanical theory. right now he's interested in applying more of his math skills. so last year, in calculus bc, at the end of the yearwe were trying to figure out the solid we were going to get fromintersecting two cylinders and trying to see it on the computer andtrying to draw it on the board was really difficult. i was like, "oh, why don't i print out a 3d model for the surface?"
i was sitting there for about 30 minutes,staring at the printer as it printed layer by layer. before, it was just in my mind or on a piece of paperor on a computer and that wasn't as cool as having the project in your hand because you're able to touch it and you'reable to feel the project itself. mr. curanovic and mr. pigis, my otherengineering teacher asked me to create an instructions seton the makerbot because i was working on itall the time. they told me to teach infront of the class so that all the students can get it. there are students that sometimesthey'll look at the picture
and they'll look at the 3d modeland they'll say "can you just walk me through itonce more?" and they're probably more of a verballearner.
some students are completely visual andsome of the students, and now most of them thanks to the makerbot are moretactile learners so they'd rather see it, play with it,look at it, and say "hey, can't we do this with this next time?"
