Numeracy and Art Find a Common Ground

Hello students!

Today we have taken another step with the 3D printer.  We worked as a class to figure out what our builds are costing us, depending on where we source our filament.  ABS filament from our Canadian supplier costs us roughly $70 a kilogram after taxes and delivery.  PLA filament (Plant-based and biodegradable) from Asia costs us $33.50 per kilogram delivered.  Because we can order in values less than $70, duty and taxes are not applied at the border...BONUS!

Here is a picture of our equations!

In the example, a 20 gram print (see the Pacific Rim robot below) with the Canadian sourced filament cost $1.40 to print.  Naturally, this excludes the cost of the purchase of the Makerbot and any ongoing maintenance.  In the second example, the Alexander the Great print that we did came out to be 46 grams.  If we had made the Alexander with the Asia sourced PLA filament, it would have cost us $1.54.  What this equation allows us to do is recoup the costs associated with prints that students would like to make for personal purposes.

Here is Ben's robot:

It is exciting to know that we can get biodegradable filament for the Makerbot!  What a great way to be environmentally conscious in our creating.  "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors.  We borrow it from our children."