Running a makerspace in an educational setting is a complex endeavor. This holds whether you're running a makerspace in a K12 setting, a university, or a trade school.
You need to coordinate students, 3D printers, teacher requests, materials, and equipment. You need to consider your users' needs: are they working on self-directed school projects? Or are they under orders from someone else - for example, an employer who is paying for their continued education?
One reason this complexity exists in an educational makerspace is that you'll have students of many and varied abilities. Even in elementary school, some students may have a 3D printer at home, and therefore already have some 3D printing experience. On the other hand, even in university, you may have students who have never even heard the concept before.
Let's take a look at ways to reduce the complexity of your 3D printing program. Some of these recommendations are specifically solved by using 3DPrinterOS, while others can be implemented no matter what your 3D printing workflow looks like.
This is one of the central points you can do for yourself. Invest in software that lets you run all your 3D printers on a single interface. Our makerspace clients have a full gamut of 3D printers and run them all through 3DPrinterOS. One of these clients is running everything from a $200 hobby printer up to a specialty $65,000 one - and he and his students only need to learn a single interface.
Using one interface for all your 3D printers means your students can focus their time and attention on the projects they are working on, instead of having to learn a new system every time they use a different machine.
These days, you can do pretty much anything from anywhere. Your home doorbell rings while you're at work, and you have a conversation with the delivery driver. It's time to move your 3D printing processes online as well.
This step alone will save you hours when you move to 3DPrinterOS. Our clients tell us their students often used to lose their SD cards and USB sticks. Now, they do all their 3D printing within the 3DPrinterOS platform, and it can all be completed from anywhere.
It's more than just not losing the files, though. Because each iteration is tracked, our clients can tell which version was printed, and if something goes wrong, they can easily troubleshoot it. They can log in from their desk, and see which file their student printed, what the settings were, which machine it printed on, and so on.
When you're running a makerspace and coordinating students and their 3D printed projects, some of the small details can make a large impact on reducing complexity.
Teach your students to adjust the orientation of their projects for minimum support needs. This will greatly reduce the amount of post-processing needed. If you can reduce each student's post-processing time by 30 minutes per month, you'll free up hours of makerspace time when you multiply that time by 20, 50, or 100 students.
Another client told us that he found reducing the options of available filament colors helped to reduce complexity in his makerspace. He had a rainbow of options available at first, but with his students being all in the high school level, it was much better to streamline into just 3 colors.
This helps on at least two fronts. Students have fewer decisions to make and can get to the actual 3D printing of their project quicker. And the other thing is, he doesn't have to manage multiple colors of filament: he doesn't have to order as often; he doesn't have to track as many inventory items; and he doesn't have to switch out filament colors on his 3D printers.
This final point is similar to running all your disparate 3D printers on one interface. If you are serious about reducing the complexity of your 3D printing program, you need a robust platform like 3DPrinterOS where you can manage all your users, all your 3D printers, and all your files on a single platform.
Our clients have made it clear to us that not only would it be harder and more complex if they were not using our software, but it would be impossible. Their students are at many different experience levels; their 3D printers might be located across multiple campuses; some of them need to protect their students' files as intellectual property.
We love being a part of their makerspace success, and we'd love to be a part of yours too. Book a demo to see it in action for yourself!
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