The power of print

• Article 12 of 15
• EducationInvestor, August 2013

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The raw materials needed for 3D printing can also be expensive. "They're in liquid form and come in a bottle. You have the modelling liquid and a support liquid. A litre of modelling liquid costs about £120, but that's much more expensive than the support liquid." However, Belcher emphasises that when printing objects, less modelling liquid is needed than might appear. "You're not printing solid lumps. We have a student creating a mobile phone cover and that's thin, so it only costs a couple of pounds to make." The school also uses software that minimises the amount of modelling liquid required. "If you created a solid dice, that's a lot of material, but you can specify that the model should be 2mm of modelling material thin and that the rest inside should be the cheaper support material." The result is that the price "dramatically drops", says Belcher.

Being an independent school, ACS doesn't need to follow the UK's National Curriculum, which has given it far more latitude in what it teaches and what it regards as important. Similarly, Whitgift Independent School in London has been using 3D printers for several years and primarily uses the printers for rapid prototyping. Peter Morrison, who teaches design and technology at the school, says that although his school does follow the demands of the National Curriculum, it's 'ahead of the curve' in choosing to adopt 3D printing to give its pupils a head-start in the jobs market. "We try to teach what we think the boys will benefit from and what we think industry will benefit from. The boys need to do what's necessary for GCSE and A-level, but at Key Stage 3, we follow what's necessary in the National Curriculum, but try to teach what's more relevant to industry", including 3D printing.

Since the National Curriculum only requires 3D modelling knowledge for GCSE and A-level CDT teaching, but not 3D printing, few schools have been investing in printers. But with the Curriculum in flux and schools being afforded more latitude in what they teach, there's certainly the possibility of interest in 3D printers surging in the next few years as they look to the needs of industry and respond, as they did to tablets and other technologies popularised at home, to potential growth in home-use of 3D printers.

However, Peter Cochrane believes that this is unlikely, not because of drawbacks with 3D printing, but because of teachers. "As ever, the problem isn't the technology, it's the people. In the British education system, there are few mathematicians, physicists, chemists or engineers at high school or below. It's dominated by arts and classics teachers, and the people who are teaching aren't very well qualified and are unaware of trends. So it's going to be one or two people in one or two schools who are going to get into it first."

However, he does see 3D printing eventually taking hold and becoming mainstream in schools, albeit in "perhaps five to ten years", he says. And he believes this is important not just to pupils but to the country as a whole. "With 3D printing, students can think about designing in new ways. That's something industry desperately needs. It would be great if we could start at the bottom with youngsters and introduce them to 3D printing - I've got to say 99% of them will end up doing stupid stuff and not get anywhere with it, but if we do this, we'll be able to find the 1% of people who can work magic with it."

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