my name is harrison hyland, i’m 18 andi’m from st helens in the north west of england. i’m doing a btec national level threein electrical engineering. mr jones he’s a very good teacher, and gives youa good insight into a mechanical engineers mind. i’d never heard of a 3d printer before and all of asudden he brought his prototype version into college and i thought that was really great.
how to get into the 3d printing industry, then he bought an ultimaker 2 and it blew me away,it was crazy to see it actually produce something. start, press print, go home come backand in the morning it has finished it for you. i think what it teaches the students isnot to be afraid of making mistakes. i think sometimes some students are afraid
that if they don’t produce somethingthat’s perfect the first time that that’s a problem. and really it’s not at all, because quiteoften you learn from your mistakes. by physically printing them, it allows themto test and then improve upon their design. some engineering students aremaking designs that are rather crude and then they can work outhow they can be improved. this one in particularis a number of component parts so we try to encourage them not to just look atone part, but how several parts can fit together. if you have a design such as that and the tolerance isn’t right, it’s going tostick, so it’s not going to move smoothly.
they’re really enthusiastic about it. what’s interesting is that our younger students areinterested in it from the age of 11 right through to 18. it interests students withmathematical skills, scientific skills but also creative skills and studentsof all ages, both boys and girls.
