Michigan Tech Prof Posts 3D Printing Course to Wikiversity

A professor at Michigan Technological University has just open-sourced his 3D printing course on Wikiversity. According to Joshua Pearce, an professor of electrical and computer engineering, the course is built around a set of "progressively more challenging exercises" intended to teach students how to work with free 3D design tools OpenSCAD, FreeCAD and Blender, "so they can solve just about any 3D printing design challenges."

The curriculum is being used in an engineering course taught to both undergraduates and graduates to help them understand 3D printing. The difference, according to Pearce, is that he expects the master's students to "do everything the undergraduates do," while almost improving on the do-it-yourself printers and publishing their mods.

Pearce reported that other universities that have adopted some version of the course have either made a 3D printer lab available to students, loaned out 3D printers or had them assemble their own using the JellyBox kit.

The course is openly available on Wikiversity, a Wikimedia project for making learning resources available to all.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • abstract illustration of a glowing AI-themed bar graph on a dark digital background with circuit patterns

    Stanford 2025 AI Index Reveals Surge in Adoption, Investment, and Global Impact as Trust and Regulation Lag Behind

    Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) has released its AI Index Report 2025, measuring AI's diverse impacts over the past year.

  • modern college building with circuit and brain motifs

    Anthropic Launches Claude for Education

    Anthropic has announced a version of its Claude AI assistant tailored for higher education institutions. Claude for Education "gives academic institutions secure, reliable AI access for their entire community," the company said, to enable colleges and universities to develop and implement AI-enabled approaches across teaching, learning, and administration.

  • lightbulb

    Call for Speakers Now Open for Tech Tactics in Education: Overcoming Roadblocks to Innovation

    The annual virtual conference from the producers of Campus Technology and THE Journal will return on September 25, 2025, with a focus on emerging trends in cybersecurity, data privacy, AI implementation, IT leadership, building resilience, and more.

  • From Fire TV to Signage Stick: University of Utah's Digital Signage Evolution

    Jake Sorensen, who oversees sponsorship and advertising and Student Media in Auxiliary Business Development at the University of Utah, has navigated the digital signage landscape for nearly 15 years. He was managing hundreds of devices on campus that were incompatible with digital signage requirements and needed a solution that was reliable and lowered labor costs. The Amazon Signage Stick, specifically engineered for digital signage applications, gave him the stability and design functionality the University of Utah needed, along with the assurance of long-term support.