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Ellis Abel Learns.

In my own words · Cloud County, KS

Why I love 3D printers

Two large gantry 3D printers extrude curved concrete walls of subscale habitat structures side by side at NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love 3D Printing" page — read by families in Cloud County, KS.
Two large gantry 3D printers extrude curved concrete walls of subscale habitat structures side by side at NASA's 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. NASA · Public domain
  • I draw it and then I can hold it.
  • It builds up in tiny layers, over and over.
  • If it does not fit, I change it and print it again.

You can love 3D printers in Cloud County.

What it really is

A 3D printer builds an object one thin layer at a time.

Three things to try today

  1. Draw a part you wish existed.
  2. Measure something it has to fit.
  3. Write down the measurement to the millimeter.
Members of the Penn State team prepare their gantry 3D printer before starting a habitat print at the NASA 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love 3D Printing" page — read by families in Cloud County, KS.
Members of the Penn State team prepare their gantry 3D printer before starting a habitat print at the NASA 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge. NASA · Public domain

For the grown-up reading this

Cloud County is one of 105 counties in Kansas. Somewhere in that number is a kid who lights up about 3D printers and has never met another one.

Tolerance is the lesson. A part that is a millimeter off does not fit, and that is the point.

If the kid who loves this is a girl

Read what one popular teacher said to one little girl who took out the classroom trash without being asked — and what that girl did with the rest of her life.

Girls are great at math — Cloud County, KS →

Love something else too

Pale rock outcroppings breaking through prairie grass in Big Cypress National Preserve. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Geology" page — read by families in Cloud County, KS.Why I love the earthCylindrical rock cores laid out in trays at the USGS Core Research Center, showing bands of different rock layers. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Rocks" page — read by families in Cloud County, KS.Why I love rocksThree orange lava fountains jet more than 100 feet above the fissure 8 cone during the 2018 Kilauea eruption. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Volcanoes" page — read by families in Cloud County, KS.Why I love volcanoesA jagged crack running across desert ground with a yellow tape measure stretched over it, marking surface rupture from the 2019 Searles Valley earthquake. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Earthquakes" page — read by families in Cloud County, KS.Why I love earthquakesHundreds of dinosaur bones still embedded in the tilted rock wall inside the Dinosaur Quarry building at Dinosaur National Monument. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Fossils" page — read by families in Cloud County, KS.Why I love fossilsThe historic quarry building at Dinosaur National Monument, built over steeply tilted Jurassic rock layers that hold a dinosaur bone bed. Real USGS photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Dinosaurs" page — read by families in Cloud County, KS.Why I love dinosaursHurricane Juliette photographed from the Terra satellite as a huge white spiral of cloud with a clear eye at its centre. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Weather" page — read by families in Cloud County, KS.Why I love weatherThe branching channels of the Godavari River delta meeting the Bay of Bengal, photographed by the crew of space shuttle Endeavour. Real NASA photograph used on the Ellis Abel Learns "Why I Love Rivers" page — read by families in Cloud County, KS.Why I love rivers

Near Cloud County

Why I love 3D printers, everywhere in the US · All things to love · STEM jobs you could do · Summer camps in Cloud County