MakerBot Industries

"Thing.stl" from Matrix Buildings by ramenspork

Here at MakerBot, we like to talk about how people who use 3D printers are committed not only to living in the future, but helping make that future possible.  So, how much more awesome is it that there are teacher out there showing how you can use high school algebra to create some seriously amazing OpenSCAD designs?

I can just picture a set of math and science curricula where the introduction to each chapter explicitly states that upon completion of that chapter the reader should know how to make a bowl, or tower, bridge, or freaking Aztec pyramid.

Also, if Thingiverse citizen and teacher ramenspork or any of their students reads this, would you pretty please put together a tutorial or lesson plan to help others learn how to create sweet printable OpenSCAD structures using linear algebra and matrices?

Matrix Buildings by ramenspork

I teach Linear Algebra to a small class of High School students. We took a few days to learn openSCAD and use the multmatrix function to explore some "real world applications". The kids in the class had no prior programming experience and I think openSCAD was a great way for them to learn some of the basics of programming. Their homework assignment was to design two objects, a building and a tree, by writing their own transformation modules using the multmatrix function (i.e. no using the built in rotate, translate, etc. functions, although union, difference, intersection were ok). Here are their buildings.

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