[3D Printing Applications] 3D Printing Educational Project: Native American Tools and Customs!

[3D Printing Applications] 3D Printing Educational Project: Native American Cultural and Cultural Trinkets!

To enhance the understanding of the Lenape Indians among second-grade students at The Brearley School in New York, researcher Luigi Cicala established the "Maker" project; for many years, the second-grade students at The Brearley School have learned about the culture of the Lenape Native Americans through their homeroom teacher's social research.

Origins of the Project

In this popular project, they visit the 4,400-acre Ward Pound Ridge Nature Reserve and Museum every fall; there they see real cabins, learn about Indigenous tools, and imagine how they live.
The guide boils water on rocks heated by a campfire, starts a fire with sticks and drills made of natural plant fibers, and displays Neolithic tools such as axes and adzes.



But the real challenge was for the indigenous people to create entertainment from their limited resources. Students made darts by attaching feathers to dried corn husks, caught soccer balls made of tanned leather, and tried to catch toys made of polished cow horn by piercing a stick through a hole in the middle. (Similar to modern kendama)





The students quickly discovered that these "toys" actually had a special training effect, enabling young people like them to acquire hunting-related skills such as hand-eye coordination, muscle strength, and dexterity, with the toy using a bow and arrow being particularly popular.
This "spinning" toy features a piece of wood carved into a star shape with two holes drilled in the center. A thin string is threaded through the holes, with the other end tied to serve as a handle. Pulling the string causes the wood to coil up. This coiling motion creates significant tension in the string, which can be released by pulling the handle. The resistance generated as the wood spins is considerable, making students feel as if they are drawing a bow, developing the skills and strength of the Native Americans who once inhabited the area.



How was this done?

Incorporating the "Maker" project into the second-year curriculum makes this field trip more meaningful. This year marks the first prototype test of the "Lannap Cultural Equipment" project, and I'm delighted to share it with Ultimaker and 3D printing users here.
As a computer science art teacher (and parent), my goals include a lot of hands-on work—using craft methods and simple materials to encourage children to find feasible approaches. I want students to have the courage to experiment and enjoy the computational process, prototyping, and refinement. This will help them find connections between future scientific and engineering activities and practical problem-solving methods when they encounter challenges in the curriculum; these projects are all grounded in the development of art, design , and engineering.

First teaching session



I brought some photos and had each student comment on them; with a large number of toys and photos, it was easy to understand the materials used by the indigenous people to make these items and their intended use. We don't have cow horns, bones, shells, or wood to make spinning machines—but I have a way of making them without blueprints.
I demonstrated how artists can overlap multiple different simple shapes to create complex shapes—so you can start by drawing a hexagon and then add triangles to make a six-pointed star, allowing students to create their own combinations of shapes. Students can then copy these geometric shapes, cut them out of paper, and glue them together to form thick stacks of paper.

I can rotate the Ultimaker Original+ on the screen and show the shapes printed by the 3D printer , the connection between the shapes made by the students and the 3D prints , and see that we can use PLA —a material that is very common in our surroundings—to replace parts of wood or bone.



Second teaching session

The computer teacher later encountered the same group of students and taught them basic iPad skills and how to use Doodle3D; they drew shapes on the iPad that could be used as rotators and output STL files, and within a few weeks the adults 3D printed these works in the appropriate scale, saving the step of gluing the components together.



The third lesson

Finally, I brought rope, sticks, and each student's 3D-printed "rotator" to the classroom. Assembly was tricky; students this age already had many ways to quickly thread and knot the rope around the sticks. They had to patiently adjust or repair the tools, but the students helped each other. Their final reactions were mostly positive, which kept the project popular!



We're delighted to see the age group getting involved in 3D printing getting younger, and we're also happy to see the education sector continuously expanding its use of the latest technologies. If you have a project underway but don't have a 3D printer , you can check out our website, or we also offer high-quality printing services . All the latest news will be shared on our fan page , so please stay tuned!

Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/3dmart.com.tw/
Original link: https://ultimaker.com/en/blog/52521-a-3d-printing-unit-inspired-by-toys-created-by-lenape-native-americans