A Letter Salad & Us
You may question why this "Teacher 3D" page has a jumble of type face letters and numbers for a heading. Well, that's because of me, I am dyslexic and that is similar to the way I perceived letters when I was in elementary school 65+ years ago. Two of my daughters are now special ed teachers and one has a degree in computer technologies, all three are afflicted with what we call the family curse, dyslexia. To us, dyslexia is not a disability, but a problem to adapt to and overcome.
I am an amateur astronomer and have been 3D printing replacement parts for my telescopes for a while. My daughter, Jennifer, had an idea for a teaching aid to help her students and asked if I could design and 3D print something. One design led to several and that's how Teacher 3D started.
What We Design and How We 3D Print
Teacher 3D instructional aids are design for strength and functionality. We want our 3D prints to look good, but not necessarily be works of art. We want them to do the job they are designed to do; help you engage your students and help them to learn.
We use Cartesian 3D printers to produce our "Teacher 3D" instructional aids. We print at a relatively fast speeds 80mm per second at a height of 0.028mm per layer using a 0.5mm diameter nozzle. These are not typical hobbyist printer settings; taller layer heights and thicker line widths make for stronger prints. When combined with the higher printing speed, we are able to greatly reduce print times and produce a stronger good-looking product at an affordable price, just not a work of art.
The goal at Teacher 3D is to produce effective and helpful instructional aids at an affordable price.