Supporting Students with 3D Product Engineering

I've designed many learning experiences where students engineer a 3D product to demonstrate their learning. Two examples of these projects are the Plate Tectonics Project and the Soap Box Derby Project.

Over my 14 years of teaching, I've assembled a toolbox of strategies, systems, and tools to help support students in these engineering endeavors. Whether it is building the fastest car that can win a race or the most accurate, durable, smoothly operating model of the Andes Mountains, when students (especially middle schoolers who are still developing their spatial reasoning skills) are asked to dream up a 3D design and actually make that design a reality, they need a lot of support.

Below are some examples of the tools I have created to help support students with these 3D design endeavors.

Time Management Tools:

Organizers, Sketching, & Prototyping Tools:

Critique Tools:

The ability to give and receive feedback is such an important skill, especially when students are doing work that requires multiple drafts or revision steps, so they know they will have an opportunity to apply the feedback before the work is done. I teach my students that critique should always be kind, specific, and helpful and focused on the goals of the work. I used a modified version of Edward de Bon0's 6 Thinking Hats to help students organize the feedback they are giving and receiving. Below are some tools that I use to facilitate feedback sessions with students:

Opportunities to share ideas and feedback with other students:

In the videos below, some of my students are sharing struggles that they have had with taking their design from a 2D sketch to a 3D digital design in Autodesk Maya. Each group had an opportunity to share a struggle and the other groups responded with strategies and feedback.