i3D Creatives and John Bokla Want to Teach Kids 3D Printing Technology

John Bokla says it was during the time he was studying architectural engineering – and struggling with the design courses – that he came up with the idea for i3D Creatives, a 3D design education firm and a platform designed to teach children between 8 and 15 years old how to use 3D printing.

Part of the process involved discussions he had with the father of “a rockstar young girl named Rowan” who lived across the street from him. A chat he had about 3D printing with her father led him to put together a makeshift curriculum and sent it along to Rowan.

“What she designed absolutely blew me away, Bokla says. “She came back with this fully colored 3D X Box controller. I fell out of my chair I was so flabbergasted. Ever since, I have been putting everything I can into learning how to make the most efficient video lessons to get even more kids started with 3D design and 3D printing.”

John Bokla

Bokla says that the next step in the evolution of his curriculum came after he taught a classroom full of kids at the Big Little Science Centre in Canada.

i3D Creatives and the i3D Creatives Launchpad were built to help younger students download and navigate the free 3D design software package, 123D Design. Bokla’s interactive software includes videos for nine modules which outline the full program. Those modules are followed by 10 lessons aimed at teaching students to design a group of different objects by themselves, and Bokla says the format was designed to let each student work through the various modules and lessons at a comfortable pace of their own choice.

Bokla says i3D Creatives Launchpad is just the first entry in a series which will include Tinkercad Launchpad to teach yet another 3D design tool. He says that curriculum will be for children ages 5 to 10, and that future i3D Creative releases will be aimed at teaching students physics, design, history, and psychology.

“And we are currently testing and developing a curriculum for students to learn flight and aerodynamics,” Bokla told The Journal, “But through these lesson sets, we will start right from the beginning at the Wright Brothers’ plane. What principles did the Wright brothers learn to enable the first human air flight?”

According to Bokla, it’s critical to include 3D printing into children’s education “to help them connect their experience of the virtual world to the realities and limitations of the physical world.”

Bokla says his curriculum has to compete for kid’s attention with video games and smartphones, and that he feels it’s critical to teach the next generation about 3D printing.

You can read more about the program on the i3 Creatives blog.

What do you think of i3D Creatives Launchpad? Do you think it will help kids learn 3D design? Let us know in the i3D Creatives Launchpad forum thread on 3DPB.com. Check out the video below introducing i3D Creatives Launchpad.