3DPrinterOSTwo campuses, thousands of students, many makerspaces
Pine Crest is a private school with two campuses 17 miles apart, in Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale, serving 2,699 students from Pre-K to grade 12. Teachers collaborate across both campuses and are free to create their own projects within the curriculum.
Innovation specialist Vicki Spitalnick and her team have developed a 3D printing curriculum over 10 years, from a grade 5 cell project designed in Tinkercad to middle school engineering competitions. Running that volume with individual flash drives plugged into each printer would have been unworkable.
3DPrinterOS from the get-go
Pine Crest has used 3DPrinterOS from the start; seeing how Duke University operates showed the team it was the only way to scale. As soon as students join the school they are entered into the 3DPrinterOS database, and when they move campus or move up to the upper school it is easy to give them access to a different set of printers through multi-user management.
Students work in Tinkercad and send their files to 3DPrinterOS, which sends them to the printers, from any location, including from home. Vicki values the level of detail for each printer, from the color of the print to how much filament is left.
35 prints at once, without leaving the desk
With printers in technically four spaces, Vicki can run 35 prints simultaneously from her desk, and multiple people can print at the same time without getting in each other’s way. Simple naming conventions such as “Teacher’s Name – Student’s Name – Cell” make sorting finished pieces a huge time saver.
The queueing system is so ingrained that students simply say they send it to the printers. By high school, students print independently, and Vicki is adamant that if Pine Crest had to use USBs, it could not produce the way it does. Her advice to anyone starting a makerspace is to start with 3DPrinterOS.
