In Nanuet, NY at A. MacArthur Barr Middle School, the students are riveted by drag racing. No, it’s not a recreation of the musical Grease; instead it is the brainchild of teacher and racing commissioner Vinny Garrison, designed to help students understand engineering principles through hands on experience. At Barr Middle School though it has become more than just a project, it is a rite of passage.
“They look forward to eighth grade. It’s a project that kids remember. I have kids engineering parts – parts that don’t exist. Last year was the first year we started 3D printing wheels; it’s doubled the engineering aspect of it really. They are going to get to college and teacher is going to be, ‘Oh, you’re good. You know how to do this.’”
Outside of the wood shop, a display case houses a number of cars, and their 3D printed wheels, that have risen to past glory on the hallway track. There is also a leaderboard that keeps tally of the fastest times for the 65 foot run both for the current year and those that hold the all time records.
The bodies of the cars aren’t the only place where there is variation. The wheels also reflect the ideas of the students creating them. Some schools that participate in this kind of activity might order stock wheels in bulk to distribute to the students. At Barr, however, the learning extends one step farther. Students design their own wheels using 3D design software and then print them on MakerBot Replicator Desktop 3D printers.
The record, which like the times registered in Olympic swimming, has become a matter of thousandths of a second’s difference. In fact the completion time for the race has dropped from 0.701 to 0.643 seconds since the introduction of 3D printing. Those who have longed for a taste of glory often design wheels that weigh as little as eight-tenths of a gram and help their vehicle find its way to glory.