Anycubic and Yale Funbotics host 3D Modeling and Printing Camp

In December last year, Anycubic hosted its first education incubation project – in collaboration with Yale Funbotics, to introduce 3D printing to children and teach them how to build and use Anycubic 3D printers. The Anycubic X Yale Funbotics 3D Modeling and Printing Camp was also held in July and October, and gave children an introduction to the world of 3D printers, an understanding of how a 3D printer works, and a general overview of 3D modeling, slicing, and 3D printer operations.

Anycubic’s 3D printing education incubation project was founded in Shenzhen in 2020, and embodies the company’s aspiration of helping everyone achieve the freedom of creation and invention using 3D printing technologies.

The Anycubic X Yale Funbotics 3D Modelling Printing Camps were designed for 4th to 12th-grade students, and ran virtually, over Zoom, and lasted three days each. On the first day, the students were taught to assemble their 3D printers – Anycubic Kobra’s, which are auto-leveling and beginner-friendly.

The next day, the printing camp students learned how to model designs in CAD. In this section, mentors guided the students on how to design basic objects, how to slice and print their objects, and helped them solve problems as they arose. According to Anycubic, by learning how to model more complex items, the children learned that designing is an iterative process and continuous adjusting and troubleshooting is part of the design process.

On the last day, students learned how to slice, print, and troubleshoot their own models. This class showed the children how troubleshooting is part of the design process, and that when a print doesn’t work, it doesn’t constitute a failure but is simply a normal part of learning about 3D printers. This motivated students to try again – tweaking the measurements of the design, adding more support, and adjusting the printing temperature – increasing their satisfaction when the print does eventually work.

Yale Funbotics is a non-profit organization that was founded to provide the resources, technology, and opportunities for under-represented youth to ignite their passion for STEM. “Providing 3D printers to these students gave them a new avenue to unleash their imagination and fall in love with STEM. From pencils and phone cases to Harry Potter wands, the kids were thrilled by how much they could create and excited to experiment with new designs,” said Pranav Avasarala, the founder of Yale Funbotics. “The Anycubic X Funbotics camps not only introduced and showed young students how much fun STEM is but gave them the opportunity and resources to pursue the field in the future. Funbotics plans to continue our partnership with Anycubic to promote STEM education in under-represented communities. We are working on adding to the 3D modeling and printing curriculum to teach students how to print, assemble, and program their own autonomous robots. We are also opening our Funbotics Lab Centers for students to come and work on their engineering projects. We are incredibly grateful to the Anycubic team – without your support, such a monumental impact would not have been possible.”

“3D printing technology is a powerful learning tool to enhance STEM Teaching and Learning and can involve people in active learning, design thinking, and problem-solving. We are excited to join Funbotics to promote STEM education with the 3D Modeling and Printing Camps. Seeing the students actively engaging in the design process, unleashing their imagination, and completing some real-world product design tasks with 3D printed prototypes makes us think – ‘3D printing is helping the youth change the world’,” said James Ouyang, Vice President of Anycubic. “We have much appreciated the help from Yale Funbtics. These 3D print camps have established an excellent springboard for us to promote the incubation program overseas. We look forward to achieving more success in our future collaboration”.