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First project: How to build 3-D printer

HANCOCK – Shawn Opplinger, director of the Western Upper Peninsula Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Engineering, said her department has received $200,000 in funding for a two-year program that will enable 25 participating middle and high school teachers to bring cutting edge technologies into their classrooms. The technologies in focus are those currently in the workplace, Opplinger explained.

“So, the 3-D printing workshop is the first workshop that the teachers will be involved in,” Opplinger said. “So they’ll be (at the CCISD building), and they’ll construct a 3-D printer. And they will learn how to computer code it, and that will be a whole week. So, when they walk out of here, they’ll have a 3-D printer that they know how to code, to create whatever item they want, and they know how to teach students how to do that.”

In addition to a brand new 3-D printer, the participating teachers will also have the necessary to operate them. They will also receive the computer coding software, and other other equipment, plus the computer to connect the individual components together.

“So, once they participate in this professional development,” Opplinger said, “they will bring all of that stuff back to their classroom and they can use it with students.”

While the students in the classrooms are learning how to use the printer, they will also learn the computer programming necessary to operating the printer.

“A 3-D printer prints objects out of plastic,” Opplinger explained. “But the cool thing is that kids learn how to computer code to create whatever 3-D product they want. So, they learn how to use CAD to do that. This is a huge technology right now in the workplace.”

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