3D Printing in STEM Education | Human-Centered Design

3D Universe recently teamed up with Ultimaker and BitSpace to host a FREE Virtual Conference on April 25th with extended sessions, panel discussions and a design challenge taking place in the days to follow.

Thank you to those that joined us for our first virtual event! It was a great success with a lot of interesting and educational content that we recorded to share with those that were not able to attend!

We had some great sessions that were focused on STEM education, Human-Centered Design, and the power of Crowd-Sourcing and global collaborations. Below, you will find links to the videos and information about each session. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

Human-Centered Innovation: How to Equip Students with the Skills and Confidence to Inspire Change

The pace of change has increased greatly in the face of COVID-19. While politicians have closed national borders, scientists, makers, and innovators from across industries have come together in unprecedented ways to provide solutions in the fight against the virus. On display is the increased focus on and need for human-centered innovation and design.

Educators around the world were already teaching this before the crisis and are only more committed to building the skills necessary for this kind of innovation in students today. But how do you equip students with these skills the confidence and inspiration to engage in this kind of design process via remote learning?

Is it different from the design thinking we teach in school? What are the challenges and opportunities to consider? How do we bring all genders to the table? How do we incorporate empathy into STEM education?

Join top female thought leaders in the design thinking space, Ellen Deutscher, Esra Murray, Jen Owen, Samantha Gleisten and Neesha Rahim in a fast-paced discussion as they leave you with practical strategies you can try with your own students.

A Photographic Journey of e-NABLE's History and Origins

e-NABLE is a global movement of makers who are using 3D printing to create free 3D printed hands and arms for those who were born missing their fingers or have lost their limbs due to war, natural disaster, accident or illness.

There are approximately 30,000 e-NABLE volunteers in over 100 countries worldwide who have collaborated to create and gift an estimated 10,000 free 3D printed hands and arms to those in need.

Over the past 8 years, the community has grown from focusing on 3D printed hands and arms to designing prosthetics for birds, tactile learning tools for the visually impaired, assistive devices for stroke survivors, and much more.

Now many of those volunteers are switching gears to provide PPE for healthcare workers during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

During this presentation, led by e-NABLE co-founder Jen Owen, participants will learn about the history of e-NABLE and the origin story that led to a global movement of makers!

Join her on her photographic journey through the years, from the first metal hand puppet, to the donation of 2 Makerbot 3D printers, to a growing online community of volunteers and now to new designs for life saving protective 3D printed masks and thousands of face shields – all created by volunteers with 3D printers who wanted to “Give the World a Helping Hand.”

3D Printing and e-NABLE in STEM Education

For the past 7 years, Jen Owen, Co-Founder of e-NABLE, has been working with educators from around the world, who have found that the e-NABLE project is an incredible way to introduce students to design thinking and how they can use their STEM education skills to make a difference.

In this short talk, Jen gives a brief history of some of the ways that over 2000 schools worldwide have used e-NABLE in the past to go beyond simply downloading the files to make 3D printed prosthetics in their classrooms to pushing the next generation of change-makers to see how many other ways they can use their ideas to make a difference.

Jen is joined briefly by Samantha Gleisten, Director of Learner Experience at BitSpace Chicago to share their new STEM education curriculum: “Prototyping with Purpose: Human-Centered Engineering Design Challenges (with e-NABLE).”

This series of seven challenges engages students in the positive power of engineering and human-centered design. Lessons are designed to make it easy for grade 4-8 teachers to deliver remotely and include instruction as well as videos that can be assigned directly to students.

Centered on the work e-NABLE has done to bring 3D printed prosthetics to people all around the world, students will learn about the Engineering Design Process, how makers and engineers are using that process in the face of Covid 19, the power of empathy in design, anatomy, and simple machines.

The culminating challenge gives students the opportunity to create an initial prototype of an upper limb prosthetic.

The cost for this curriculum is $49 (50% of proceeds go to support the work of e-NABLE!)

3D Printed Prosthetics & K12: e-NABLE in STEM Education

This panel discussion included speakers: Neesha Rahim, Jen Owen, Jon Schull, Shashi Jain, Aaron Sottile, Michael Ecker, Amanda Scampini, and Andrea Santiago-Boyd.

Educators who seek to engage students in learning opportunities that are meaningful, relevant and based on making are often intrigued when they hear about the e-NABLE community. This community of “Digital Humanitarian” volunteers from all over the world use their 3D printers to make free and low-cost prosthetic upper limb devices for children and adults in need.

For years, the e-NABLE community has helped schools put 3D printers to use (and teach empathy & engineering) by supporting teachers to 3D print and put prosthetic hands together for donation through their network.

Watch to hear from these educators who have brought this experience to their students as they discuss challenges, opportunities, tips and tricks to helping their students learn how to use their ideas and imaginations to make a difference in the lives of others.

Discover how you can use the idea of e-NABLE with your students during distance learning with activities that require no 3D printing at all.

Creating Today's Makers and Tomorrow's Life Changers Through 3D Printing Education

We were blessed to have Mary Hadley, Executive Director of MakerGirl share with us for a short session about how she works to get STEM education to girls. In 2017, she led MakerGirl's second summer #MakerGirlGoesMobile road trip to six different states educating over 520 girls throughout 37 sessions.

MakerGirl was created to inspire young girls to pursue STEM fields through 3D printing sessions.

Watch and learn about the not-for-profit MakerGirl and how they are creating an impact for the next generation of girls. They have educated 4,000 girls in 22 states through their programs so far and are on a mission to educate 10,000 girls by 2023!

Crowd-sourced 3D Printing for the COVID-19 Pandemic Response

In this session, 3D Universe founder and e-NABLE co-founder Jeremy Simon discusses ways that 3D printing can be used to help produce medical supplies to help with the COVID-19 pandemic.

For teachers who are looking for ways to continue inspiring their students to use STEM education in ways that may ultimately help change the world – finding new ways to create PPE for essential workers and front line heroes is an excellent opportunity to teach them about human-centered design, empathy and collaboration.

If you would like to help the e-NABLE Community with donations to purchase filament to continue making free PPE for front line workers, please consider donating a gift card that will allow 3D Universe to send filament directly to our volunteers who are working around the clock to provide these life-saving devices.