Buying a 3D Printer for Your Child

We’re fortunate enough to work with teachers and students around the world, and watch as 3D printing solves problems and transforms lives in the classroom. If your child has a 3D printer at school and has taken interest in it, you might be considering buying them a 3D printer for home. Does this sound like you? If so, you’re not alone.

Our district (the engineering teacher and I) have been very pleased with Polar Cloud. This cloud software has given hundreds of my students direct and continual access to our 3d printing labs. It's been so successful that at least 10 of my students now own one or more 3d printers!

However, as with any expensive purchase and new technology, you want to make sure to do your homework before you place the order and embark on this journey. Here are some things to consider before purchasing your 3D printer for at home development.

• Is the printer enclosed? If your child likes to test boundaries, an enclosed printer helps add just one more layer of safety to the printer. Some printers can “pause” when a door is opened, so they will stop moving and start to cool down.

• Are consumables easily purchased and replaced? Consumables are things like nozzles and build plates. If yours gets damaged or goes bad, are you able to buy a new one from several different resellers?

• Is there customer support available, or a thriving online community where I can get help? Some of the budget printers (sub $300) there is no customer support to help you get up and running or to bypass and issue you’re experiencing. However, if the printer is a popular model, there can be Facebook and Reddit groups where users ask questions and offer help. Check to see if the company you’re planning to purchase from has an easily accessible helpdesk and ticketing system, and get a feel for whether or not they’re responsive before shelling out ($$) for their printer.

• Is the experience similar to the printer at school? If your printer is a different brand and make/model than the one at school, there may be a learning curve for your young 3D printing enthusiast. This is okay! However, I would not recommend an entirely different technology, unless you are prepared to get involved at what might end up being a deeper level than you originally planned. It is unlikely your K-12 student is using SLA printing at school, so you should probably shy away from resin printing.

• Can the student use the same design and printing tools they are using at school? Perhaps your student is like hundreds of thousands of others and is using Tinkercad.org and polar3d.com to print when at school. For continuity and ease of transition from school to home, making sure that your printer is Polar Cloud compatible might be the most important step to consider.

Our recommendations, as of April 2024:

• Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro

• Flashforge Adventurer 5M

For updated recommendations or to ask questions, please email sales@polar3d.com

The Undercover Teacher: Hang a banner! Yes, you can print!

The printing program at our school is at it’s best when all students feel like they can get something 3D Printed. It took us a while to get here, though. I had students coming in before class in the morning or during recess and asking me if I could print something for them. The answer is yes. I had students that saw the printers but didn’t think that they were tools for their use too - only for set modules or times of the year.

To set the record straight, I made a little sheet to hang above the 3D printer. Now, any Ss can come into my room and follow the instructions to send their job to the school’s global print queue. Myself or one of our helpers will review it and send it to print! I don’t have to update the student, since they get notifications from the platform.

Just something small to make our days a little easier!

Developer Update: Summer 2021

The Polar Cloud team is hard at work to deliver the ultimate cloud experience for your 3D printers, and those you share them with. This month, you’ll find these updates and changes:

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Login support for “Sign In With Apple” has been added. Users can now sign in with their iCloud, “@Me” accounts, or using a randomized email provided by Apple

Sign In With Apple

Office365 and Microsoft Live login buttons have been condensed into “Sign In With Microsoft”, which will now support both. Users will also be able to log in with Skype, Xbox, Microsoft 365, and Outlook accounts.

Sign In With Microsoft

Support for the Flashforge Adventurer 4 has been added, along with PLA and ABS configurations. GCode streaming and camera support has been added for the Ultimaker S3 & S5. Ultimaker users will have to slice in Cura and upload .GCode or .UPF files.

New Printer Types

Some users were unable to turn on “Job Requests” in their Groups. Searching one’s own private objects would only yield objects that had been made “Public” to the Polar Cloud Community. These issues have both been fixed.

Bug Fixes

Determining The Best Workflow For Your Lab, Classroom, or Makerspace

This article was written for Educational users who manage or benefit from their community Makerspace, Library, or Classroom Lab.

What does a successful 3D Printing program look like to you?

When 3D Printing entered the public domain around 2010 it was unclear whether this was a short-term fad, a groundbreaking technology worthy of a “3D Printer on every desk and in every home”, or somewhere in between.

10+ years later, it’s clear that 3D printing is here to stay, especially when it comes to the classroom. 3D printing presents a great learning opportunity for spatially oriented students, it is an inexpensive way to allow students to lean from their mistakes, and best of all - the kids love it! We all learn better when we are passionate about the subject matter.

At the end of the day, what do you hope to achieve by having a 3D Printer (or multiple) in your classroom or lab?

1. 3D print things! The technology is neat and just seeing the end result is enough to benefit.

2. Teach Computer Aided Design and print the parts out myself.

3. Teach Computer Aided Design and involve the students in the 3D printing process so they can learn about slicing, object orientation, water-tightness, negative space, and more.

4. Learn about 3D printing technology from an engineering standpoint.

Option One 3D Print Things

This is why we’re all here anyways, right? The act of 3D Printing itself is still a novel, neat thing to watch unfold. If you offer your community access to your 3D Printer, this may be plenty to involve them in the process and get them thinking critically about the technology and ways to apply it to their lives.

Find a few of your favorite “Object Repositories” that allow for downloadable .STL files and have them submit those objects for printing.

Option Two Teach CAD

3D modeling can be a great way to motivate kids to create objects and stimulate their creativity. Getting students to turn their 2D drawings or doodles into 3D designs on the screen is a great first step towards involving them in the 3D printing process so they can benefit from all of the different avenues to learn. If your students design in Tinkercad, they can export directly to the Polar Cloud.

Use NGSS STEAM Curriculum

Shown is a bubble wand from the STEAMtrax and Makers Empire offerings.

Generate Your Own

Student Generated “Race Cars” For a School Led Track System and Race

Leverage Design Competitions

A student submission in a challenge to make “assistive devices”

Option Three CAD + 3D Printing

We’ve already covered the benefits of and ways to introduce CAD to the users of your 3D Printer. But why stop there? 3D Printing as a tool has gained so much popularity because it’s an accessible and affordable way to fabricate our own designs at home.

If your student is tasked with identifying a reason for their design, designing the part, then slicing the 3D print and preparing the printer, they have conquered all there is to learn about 3D Printing!

Have you considered promoting some students to Experienced Students so they can slice their own jobs for the printer, or Student Managers so they can help print for others? If your school has the Premium Site License you can offload some of the work to others, while maintaining complete control of your printer.

Option Four 3D Printer Engineering

Thermoplastics, glass-transition temperatures, extrusion rates, shrinkage values, cartesian coordinates, firmware, the list goes on… there is no shortage of neat engineering and science terms that can be learned about and applied to 3D Printing!

This topic deserves it’s own post that will be coming at a later date.

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Other things to consider:

• I am busy and don’t want to email everyone individually.. how will I notify my students that their prints are ready for pickup? (The Polar Cloud sends notifications for you!)

• How will I make sure each student is getting a fair chance to have their parts printed? (Generate Reports to check student design activity)

• My school doesn’t have the budget to 3D Print everything! How can I keep my printing program afloat? (Commerce on the Polar Cloud allows you to receive tips on public objects and sell designs, you keep 100% of proceeds!)

• We have a lot of failures! They take up valuable time and resources. How can we improve? (Identifying common student print issues).

More Articles Like This:

• The Best Webcams for Your 3D Printer

• 5 Reasons Why 3D Printing is on its Way To Your Classroom

Best USB Webcams For Your Octoprint 3D Printer

This topic has been covered elsewhere, but I want to shed a little more color on what should be a simple solution.

I do not see ANY USB camera that requires extra libraries to be installed via command line to be a viable option for your Octoprint setup. The PS Eye that I bought many years ago (based on the recommendation in these articles, no less) does NOT work. A cheap USB camera purchased from Amazon did NOT work without running some command on startup each time your instance was rebooted. To me.. A USB camera should work the moment you plug it in to your Raspberry Pi, OrangePi, or whatever you’re using. That’s non-negotiable.

I really just wanted to draw attention to the fact that some cameras out there do not work, or present issue, and thus - a list like this is necessary. I think the most important things to consider when picking a webcam are:

• Mounting style: Is the camera encased/protected and has a clamp style mounting system made for the tops of laptops and monitors? Is it bulky? Or - is it minimalist and exposed, requiring I print my own case?

• Price: Do you really want to spend $100 on a webcam for your $200 Creality Ender 3?

• Autofocus (and other “features): Auto-focus makes for a nice crisp shot, but the depth sensor can get confused when your print head is moving around - focusing on the printer’s frame, or print head, or the printed part itself.

An example of the autofocus on a Logitech C920

Option One Logitech C270

Notes:

• Plug-and-play

• Encased

• Budget

Buy On Amazon (non-affiliate link)

Option Two Raspberry Pi Cam

Notes:

• Small form factor, easy to mount or encase

• Inexpensive

Buy On Amazon (non-affiliate link)

Option Three Microsoft LifeCam Cinema

Notes:

• Side-to-Side Rotation (Pivot)

• Autofocus

• Rigid mounting

• 720p

Buy On Amazon (non-affiliate link)

Option Four Logitech HD Pro C920

Notes:

• 1080p

• Auto-Focus

Buy On Amazon (non-affiliate link)

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If you’re like the hundreds of thousands of others that use the Polar Cloud to monitor their 3D printer’s camera stream when they’re away from home (among other things), yes, you can also use these cameras to monitor your Flashforge Finder that does not have a native camera like the Inventor IIS does. Just plug it into the USB port and you’re good to go!