Article
3D Printing with Playgrounds Apps
See this student's 3D printed teaching materials used to support the coding program.
One of my students who is a dual media learner with extremely low vision but still has use of their functional vision is currently learning how to code using Apple’s Playground’s App to learn how to code.
Recently we have started incorporating the 3D Printer into our plans using Apple’s Playground App to help my student learn to translate between the 2D picture she is looking at within the coding app and the 3D model of the picture my student is touching with her hands. The 3D model gives her a better idea of the layout of the landscape that she needs to type to correct the code to make her character move in the different worlds within the App. We began using 3D printing while working on the very first lesson of the Playgrounds App. In order to create the model we had to use our district’s 3D printing program to help us first design it. In order to do this, we had to really take a look at the image of the scene featured in lesson 1 and determine how we could simplify it down to the essential 3D elements that my student would need in order to complete the coding task.
Here is our translation from the image on the app to the 3D drawing program:
We decided that my student really only needed the steps and extended blocks from the app image in order to get the information to complete the coding task. Then we built the rest of the steps model using blocks in the printing program:
Then we finally printed our 3D model seen below:
P.S. Stay tuned for part 3 of this blog series where I share my student’s experience learning to code using 3D printing and the Zoom feature on the iPad.
Playgrounds App Review Post (#1)
Attached Images of 3d steps PDF
Attached File(s)
https://www.perkins.org/sites/elearning.perkinsdev1.org/files/Swift%20Steps%20.pdf
By Julie Johnson
