The Makomborero Mobile Lab Launches 3D Sessions

In September 2024, we had a wonderful visit from students and teachers from Espoon yhteislyseo – EYL and Matinkylan lukio secondary schools in Finland. It was Makomborero’s third collaboration in 15 years with this wonderful team and we were so humbled and grateful to Anna, the teachers and the students for coming out to be with us. They donated generously to our students and spent a very special two days with us. Amongst the amazing donations of clothes and stationery was a 3D printer! We knew it was a gift that would make an incredible difference to our students and we are excited to tell you all about it!

We thought the Makomborero Mobile Science Lab would be a great place to start rolling out 3D Printing lessons. Our Mobile Science gives hands-on lab experience to 14-16 year olds. To this point, we have successfully taught Biology and Physics practical lessons in a well-kitted lab to over 250 eager students. We knew adding 3D printing sessions would be an unquestionable winner and we were right! Click the link, here, to see our students talk about one such session.

First thing was first! Our teachers Nyasha and Shawn as well as our then gap year student, Leslie had to go through some training themselves as well as learn to assemble the printer. All are past Makomborero A-Level scholarship recipients. Nyasha is now a qualified Mechanical Engineer and Shawn is at the tail end of his Medical Degree. By the time our machine got cleared at customs and made it to our Mobile Science Lab, the Finnish team had long left for Finland. That meant training had to happen online. Thank goodness for technology, this worked out really well! So well, they were able to print a fully functional clothes peg during their training. Nyasha had some prior knowledge of 3D printing from his undergrad and Shawn from a Maker Club day course hosted by Makomborero while he was doing his A-Level. The doctor/engineer jokes from this duo were endless and we will spare you those. They both learnt a lot from Lauri, their Finnish 3D Printing trainer and with newly-gained confidence, 3D lessons were scheduled on the 2025 Mobile Science Lab calendar.

There were two sessions scheduled for term 1 (January – April). However, with much zeal, Shawn and Nyasha started introductory sessions earlier than those two sessions. With 15 students who had never even seen a 3D printer before, they began by showing them the printer and allowing them to familiarise themselves with its different components. At the first dedicated session, the 15 students were split into 5 groups. Each group was given the exciting task of designing a 3D structure that was simple but useful and the winning group’s design would be printed on that very day! We saw five fantastic ideas – a game console, a bridge, a pencil holder, a basketball and a human heart. The winning design was the pencil holder. It was encouraging to see the whole class come together and chat through why this design was good and work together to improve it. They went back into their groups to put a unique stamp on the pencil holder. Dimensions were discussed, ‘Measure the circumference of your pencil!’ I could hear Shawn saying repeatedly to the students. Students then got a chance to input their designs onto the Mobile Lab laptop. Later on, as the students enjoyed lunch, the first 3 pencil holders went through the printer. I was keen to see the printing process as this was a first for me too! Nyasha and Shawn explained that there were two ways of printing. They could either start with a block and have that chipped away to the desired shape, or they could choose the layering method where the desired shape would be built in thin layers. Nyasha and Shawn chose the latter as it saves on printing material. I also learnt that the printing material is called hyper PLA filament and it is recyclable! Currently the Mobile Science lab has white, purple, red and yellow colours. We can’t wait to see what they will do with these colours in the future! Kindly click the link to see the printer in action!

Any lessons learnt? Yes indeed! We learnt that the more complex models, particularly those with curvatures, need to be printed in parts that then get assembled. Support structures are needed for certain designs and this was another lesson. We also learnt that unlike a paper printer, it takes a while to print 3D models so enough time needs to be allocated for this.

In conclusion, we feel that the first session went very well! There was lots of fun and excitement from both teachers and students. At the time of writing this, Shawn is printing the rest of the students’ designs so that at the next session each student can have a pencil holder to take home. For the next two terms in 2025, we will have 2 more intakes of 15 students each. This means in this year alone, 45 students would have learnt about 3D printing and benefited hugely from the practical experience. To see the finished products kindly click the link, here!
Thank you once again to the Finnish team for this incredible gift!