Artventure: 3D-printed Tripod Mount

I've been looking for a tripod mount for the longest time. Browsing online catalogue and reading reviews about the various brands. I bought one that didn't really work too well and so I tried printing it at my regional library. I'm glad it turns out decent and workable too. The challenging part was looking for the ONE nut that's of the right size. All I needed to do now is to adjust the tripod mount and just slide my phone in when needed. So, now I could free my hands in my teaching demo videos!

Art Club: Ceramics Preparation

There! I've recycled some clay containers for the glazes. By labelling multiple containers of each colour, students will have an array of choices for their bisque-fired clay. Previously, I had a variety of colours in ice-cube trays for each group but I find them quite messy and due to the close proximity of the colours, they can cross-contaminate easily.

Upcycled Garden

Welcoming students into Term 3 with an art installation! The teachers reuse fruit cups to create a 'plastic garden'. It was good fun to experiment during our brainstorming session. All the children need to do is to provide an estimation of the number of cups used in this work and drop their answers in a provided box.

Photo: Mdm Aznani

Artventure: 3D Printing

Hellooo! I'm trying my hands at 3D printing. At the regional library, we have a maker space where 3D printers are available for use. I attended a compulsory briefing and given the resources, I'm trying to figure things out. The ground rules are reasonable for public usage. I was hoping to print something useful for the art rooms. Thinkercad was used to design my sign and while I was printing, a mom and her son were printing name tags for teachers' day gifts. What a resourceful and patient boy! As only one registered user can use the lab once a week, one has to return to the lab quite often. Sometimes, the printed object might have flaw(s) which require minor tweaks in the digital file and printing it again. 

Printing layer by layer

The % of infill determines the density. It's not a whole solid. 

The original blueprints are created using Computer Aided Design (CAD) programmes such as Sketchup, Tinkercad, Solidworks and AutoCAD Students. 

There are 3D printing designs that come from community digital file sharing such as:

pinshape.com

thingiverse.com

myminifactory.com

For technology that scans an object then producing a printable 3D file:

skanect.occipital.com

reconstructme.net 

Art Class: Plastic Ocean

 

The P5s have finally completed the lesson unit on plastics Ocean! Do refer to the tab on Lesson Units to view the lesson unit plan from the previous year. I usually collect cardboard from my school canteen's vendor on Fridays so I could use them for projects. The cardboard are usually clean and dry so keeping them for future use is convienent. The collection has to be all year round to maintain my sanity and I know that they would be ready for use.

Art Class: Life by the River

We started this unit by having a discussion about the Singapore river in the past. The children viewed a few monochrome photographs of the river and the activities near it. The river cleanup took 10 years and millions of dollars. Then we move on to discuss pioneer artist's painting by Liu Kang. 

The children drew their version of Life by the River using jumbo permanent black markers and I read to them the story 'Sky Color' by Peter Reynolds to weave in painting techniques. We took a lesson to practise the painting routines using watercolour cakes on an experimental paper first (see above photo). 

The next time I'm doing this, I'll be getting the children to sketch on their mini-whiteboards first and using jumbo markers to do their drawings directly.

Art Class: Where are you from? (Part III)

We're ending semester one in two weeks' time and the children went to the art gallery to talk about our work. A few years ago, I joined Urban Sketchers to do outdoor sketching and we round off the session with everyone displaying our work on the ground. At one glance, we could easily look at everybody's work and appreciate the distinct styles of individuals.

The children's artworks were displayed on the ground prior to class. Before entering the gallery, I told them to keep their hands to themselves. They moved around the room freely first to get a better view of the works. Once their hearts and minds are settled, then it is easier to get the class started. I got selected students to question the artists about their work and then encouraged the children to form small group discussion about the art pieces. To swop their places, I had them move 10 steps in one direction at a time to look more closely at different works.