I had the privilege on working with a small group of year 1 students, using TinkerCad to create a 3D giraffe. Only being at an intermediate level in Tinkercad myself I was originally unsure how to go about this in a way that ensured the students would be hands on, rather than just watching me create the giraffe.
Of course, the obvious way was to create the giraffe in the non-digital form first, using blocks and the shapes such as cylinders and spheres. Their conversations during this process demonstrated to me their knowledge of 3D shapes. They discussed, collaborated and came to a shared agreement as they built their giraffe using wooden blocks before transferring their understanding into the digital world of Tinkercad.
'We need long cylinders for the legs because the giraffe has long legs,' led to the students learning how to lengthen the cylinders in Tinkercad. Showing the students how to use the workplane to give a plane to put the shapes onto and using the arrow keys for fine control led to the creation of a successful giraffe. Using the 3D viewer to turn the giraffe around to check position placement gave us a lot of laughs as we realised, when looking at the giraffe from a new angle, the head was not actually attached to the neck like we had thought. The iterative process of repositioning and checking gave the students the opportunity to demonstrate their perseverance as they kept going until they had it 'just right'.
The next day, as the giraffe printed on the 3D printer, I realised we had come full circle - from the concrete, to the digital and back to the concrete.
Of course, the obvious way was to create the giraffe in the non-digital form first, using blocks and the shapes such as cylinders and spheres. Their conversations during this process demonstrated to me their knowledge of 3D shapes. They discussed, collaborated and came to a shared agreement as they built their giraffe using wooden blocks before transferring their understanding into the digital world of Tinkercad.
'We need long cylinders for the legs because the giraffe has long legs,' led to the students learning how to lengthen the cylinders in Tinkercad. Showing the students how to use the workplane to give a plane to put the shapes onto and using the arrow keys for fine control led to the creation of a successful giraffe. Using the 3D viewer to turn the giraffe around to check position placement gave us a lot of laughs as we realised, when looking at the giraffe from a new angle, the head was not actually attached to the neck like we had thought. The iterative process of repositioning and checking gave the students the opportunity to demonstrate their perseverance as they kept going until they had it 'just right'.
The next day, as the giraffe printed on the 3D printer, I realised we had come full circle - from the concrete, to the digital and back to the concrete.
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