Construct3D 2018

A panel of educators and industry allies roll up their sleeves to discuss education and 3D printing from a holistic perspective rather than limiting discussion to a traditional rhetoric regarding workforce development policy. We have heard a number of talks this conference indicating the widening skills gap in the United States in manufacturing and industry, as well as opportunities that exploring these technologies brings to learners destined for STEM/STEAM trajectory careers, including ones where 3D printing and digital fabrication plays merely secondary or tertiary role.


This panel takes a practical and realistic look at a number of the routes by which 3D printing is introduced to bring students and learners into design and technical expertise — the maker movement, engineering & design coursework,  interdisciplinary/campus-wide makerspaces, the fab lab movement, and direct industry training and certification. These routes are considered along with a few of the future endpoints in manufacturing, industry, and design professions. 


Are these opportunities to learn about this technology preparing learners for success in future careers? Will the routes aimed to add more technically skilled workers address our manufacturing skill gap? How likely will time spent exploring 3D printing earlier in one’s educational career prepare learners for identifying and performing in the new professional jobs of tomorrow?


The panel has been selected because it represents perspectives on this topic with differing allegiances and values — and we are hoping to use this discussion to enlarge audience understanding of promising routes to explore with students and learners, and make discoveries, rather than to present a consensus view.




The panel includes:
- Sarah Boisvert. Long time veteran of laser machine industry and other manufacturing technologies, a key part of Fab Lab movement in USA, and author of The New Collar Workforce.
- Becky Button. A Maker, involved in content creation in the Maker Movement.
- Justin Hopkins. An application engineer from HP in their additive strategy efforts. He is also the critical person who set up SCADs makerspace and influenced the direction of their 3D printing and digital fabrication strategies.


- Matthew Wettergreen - Engineering design professor from Rice University (OEDK). Also deeply engaged in field work that puts into direct action the engineering design methodology he teaches to students at Rice.