Welcome! Read this post for instructions on how to enter.
by mathgrrlDoes your school need a 3D printer?
From time to time, MakerBot and Thingiverse have the opportunity to give 3D printers away to schools. If you are interested in suggesting your school as a possible donation site, then this post will tell you how to do that.
Thingiversity Fall STEAM Challenges
Thingiverse is running two simultaneous Challenges this fall. In addition to that, over the fall we will select ten featured schools from this group. At the end of the fall, the two first-place winners of the Thingiversity Fall STEAM Challenges (ThinkFun Expansion Set and Make It Loud!) will each select one of the ten featured schools to be the recipient of a MakerBot Replicator Desktop 3D Printer and supplies.
Each school entry must be submitted by a faculty member or administrator of the school in question. Schools must post a topic to this group before 11:59:59 EST on Dec 6, 2015 in order to be considered for the fall round of Thingiversity STEAM Challenge donations.
Of course, we also encourage you to find ways that your school, students, and community can participate in the Fall STEAM Challenges! The ThinkFun Expansion Set and Make It Loud! Challenges are open to the entire Thingiverse community. You can also get ideas for classroom 3D printing projects from our previous Summer STEAM Challenges.
To enter your school, please complete the following steps
Step 1: Make a Thingiverse account for your school. As administrator of this account you should be an official school representative.
Step 2: While logged into the school account, make a post in the “Our School Needs a 3D Printer!” group, as follows: Click the “Topics” tab under the banner header, and then click the “Start a Topic” button. Give your topic a title that includes the name and location of your school. (Note that you should make a top-level post to the group, not a response to this particular instructions post. Please click the "Topics" tab before starting your Topic.)
Step 3: Tell us what your school would do with a 3D printer: Describe why you think your school should be one of the ten featured schools that will have a chance to be selected by the Challenge winners. We know that 3D printing is cool and fun and opens doors to students, but we want to know the details of how your school would specifically plan to use the 3D printer. Would it be in a classroom, on a cart, shared by many, available to students, part of a larger lab, used for a particular workshop, or used in particular subject areas? Would it be your school’s first 3D printer or would it be expanding an existing 3D printing setup? There are no right or wrong answers here; just tell us your story.
Step 4: Convince us that your printer will be used and that you’re ready to roll: Do your students already work with CAD software or other 3D design tools like Tinkercad? Can you point to Things or Collections on Thingiverse that your students or faculty have been working on? Do you have someone at the school who would be a champion for your printer and make sure that it was maintained and used? What kinds of projects would you anticipate doing with 3D printing? Again, there are no right or wrong answers.
Step 5: Although not required, we encourage you to include images and links within your group post as appropriate. You might also work on your school Thingiverse profile, create 3D designs as Things or make Collections of what your students and faculty have done, and so on.