Using Google Classroom to manage stl files for 3D printing in a club environment?

[Adam Singer]

Do any of you use google classroom in a club environment to handle turning in of stl files for 3D printing from Chromebooks?  I have tried making an assignment without a due date, and I see I can access and download the stl files from my classroom folder on drive, but am at a loss for using the tool as the main way students turn in designs to me on an ongoing basis, like in a club environment.  In a class, this works smoothly when there is a specific assignment they are turning a design in for. But for an open-ended situation like a club, where some students will hand in many designs throughout the year, I’m looking for a system that calls my attention to new submissions easily.

 

Any of you figure out a smooth system yet? Or is there a better (and free) other system for transferring stl files and setting up a queue?

 

Thanks for your advice!

 

Adam Singer

Technology and Shop Teacher

Davidson Middle School

http://davidson.srcs.org/singer

(415) 485-2400 x137

Twitter: @DavidsonMakers

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[Andrew]

Hi Adam-

I think the central question for designing a print/cut queue system is "who will manage the jobs?"

If that's just one or two people, often working from a dedicated workstation in the FabLab model, then you can rely on human actions for some of the details.

For 3D printing, our kids can design on any computer using common tinkercad accounts (makerspace00N). Our bank of makerspace laptops have our preferred slicers preconfigured, so students can download their STLs on those machines and get the GCODE/x3d file. Those are the files that go into our queue. Since their already working on our laptops, they all have a shared/synced folder (gDrive, DropBox, etc) called TO PRINT or somesuch.

When the queue manager moves that GCODE file to the SD card for printing, we move the GCODE file to an Archived folder. This means that new versions that come in from the student can have consistent filenames. We can sort the incoming directory by date and see which are the oldest files that need printing.

This system falls down for us when we get lazy about clearing out the SD card. It also only functions because we have a small number of people processing print jobs, so that we can hold each other accountable for keeping the system in check.

--andrew

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[Julie Spang]

I am the sole printer for my MakerSpace club.  I have students fill out a Google form.  They need to upload and share the stl file with me in drive and paste the link in the Google Form.  (I also have them tell me what color they want, what size printout they desire and ask a few other questions to help me print what they want.  Then I add a column to the sheet generated by the form to mark the status of the prints (complete/ended in error/etc) so I know what printing I need to do.

Julie

[Adam Singer]

Thank you, both! With the diverse ecosystem of grant-funded and donated 3D printers in our Maker Shop, I really need to manage the printing. Assuming kids can consistently share links properly, looks like a form is the best way to go for me. The form could also be embedded in a Google site so kids can see where they are in the queue.

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