Day 1: Design it, Print it

WOVEN

Design It, Print It

Day 1 · Your First Build

College of the Desert · Future Makers Lab · Today you make something real.

Three machines run this room: a 3D printer, a 3D scanner, and a drone. Today you start with the printer. You will design your own object in Tinkercad, send it to a real 3D printer, and end the day getting your first minutes flying a drone. What you design today prints tonight and is yours to keep tomorrow.

🛠️ Meet the Maker Lab

A maker does not just use tools. A maker designs, builds, tests, and improves. That loop is the same whether you are printing a part, scanning an object, or flying a drone. This week you run all three machines. Today you learn the one at the heart of the lab: the 3D printer.

🗓️ Today's arc

Design your own object in Tinkercad → send it to the 3D printer → take your first flight. Your print runs overnight and comes back tomorrow morning.

💡 The big idea

Everything in this room, and a huge share of the objects in your house, started as a digital design someone typed into a screen. Today you cross that line: from an idea in your head to a real object you can hold.

✏️ Design It in Tinkercad

Tinkercad is a free 3D design app that runs in your browser. Today you make your own object: a name tag, a keychain, or a small charm with your name on it. This is your object, one per person.

🎯 Your design brief

A name tag, keychain, or charm with your name on it. Keep it under 60 mm in any direction and fairly flat, so it prints fast and shares the printer with everyone else's.

Step 1: Watch, then open Tinkercad

Watch this once. It covers the five moves you need today: Place, Move, Rotate, Resize, and Group. Then open tinkercad.com in Chrome, sign in to your Tinkercad account (your facilitator will get you set up), and click Create, then 3D Design.

Step 2: Build your base

Drag a Box or a rounded shape onto the workplane. This is the body of your tag or charm. Click it and set its size in the dimension boxes, keeping it under 60 mm and thin, around 3 to 5 mm tall.

Step 3: Add your name

In the shapes panel on the right, find the Text shape and drag it on. Type your name. Move it on top of your base and raise it so it sits proud of the surface. If you want a keychain, drop a small cylinder near one edge, make it a Hole, and group it to punch a ring hole.

Step 4: Group and get your link

Drag a selection box around everything and press Group (Ctrl+G on Windows, Cmd+G on Mac) so it becomes one solid object. Then click Share, turn on the view link, and copy it (your facilitator will show you where). You will post that link in the next step, no file to export.

🚀 Finished early?

Add a second detail: a shape that means something to you, a number, an emoji-style icon built from basic shapes. Every shape you add is a new skill. Just keep the whole thing under 60 mm.

🖨️ Print It

Your design is a digital file. A 3D printer turns it into a solid object by laying down one thin layer of melted plastic at a time, from the bottom up. The Bambu printers in this room have an AMS, a system that holds several colors and swaps them mid-print, so your object can be more than one color.

Step 1: See how multicolor printing works

Watch how the AMS swaps colors automatically. This is the machine that prints your design.

Step 2: Plan your colors

Look at your design and decide which part is which color: the base one color, your name another. Write your color plan on your notes so your facilitator can set it the same way in the print software.

Step 3: Post your design link

Post your shareable Tinkercad link, not the STL file, to the Future Makers Lab board below. Your facilitator opens each link, batches everyone's designs onto the printers, and starts the overnight run. Your object will be waiting for you tomorrow morning.

⏳ While it prints

Printing takes time, so you will not watch yours finish today. That is normal. Tonight both printers run your whole class's designs. Tomorrow you hold the thing you made, then you level up to designing for the drone.

🚁 First Flight

You designed. You printed. Now you fly. This is a taste. Tomorrow you go deeper and fly a real delivery, so today is about getting comfortable on the sticks.

🧰 What's at your station

1 Echo drone + controller • charged batteries • a partner • a target mat on the floor

⚠️ Safety, every flight

Propellers spin fast enough to cut. Hands away when the props are spinning.
Never grab a drone out of the air. Tell it to land, then wait.
One drone flying at a time. Eyes on your own drone.
When you hear "PROPS DOWN," every drone lands. No exceptions.

Step 1: Connect and hover

Pair the drone to its controller (your facilitator walks you through it). Then gently raise the left stick until the drone lifts to about waist height. Hold a steady hover for five seconds and land slowly. Tiny stick movements. The most common beginner mistake is over-correcting. Breathe.

Step 2: Fly a box and land on target

Once your hover is calm, fly a slow box: forward, right, back, left. Then practice landing on the target mat. Swap with your partner every few minutes. This is the exact control you will need for tomorrow's delivery.

📺 Need the how-to videos?

The official flight videos (how to take off, replace propellers, connect) live on the Pitsco Echo support page: pitsco.com/products/echo-drone. Scroll to the Support Materials section.

Career Connection

Where Design + Printing Takes You

The two skills you used today, designing in 3D and printing it real, show up in far more jobs than you would guess. A few:

Product designer Industrial designer Mechanical engineer Sneaker designer Video game character modeler Movie prop + creature maker Disney Imagineer Jewelry designer Dental lab technician Prosthetics maker Architect Cosplay armorer Rocket parts engineer Toy inventor Chocolate + cake printing

The armor in your favorite superhero movie, next season's sneakers, the clear aligners straightening someone's teeth, and even edible chocolate decorations are designed and printed the same way you did today. Most of these start around 50,000 dollars and climb fast for specialists. College of the Desert has the printers, the software, and the certificates, right here in the Coachella Valley.

📸 Snap + Share

Post a screenshot of your Tinkercad design and a clip of your first flight. Scan the QR with your phone, or use the board below. Put your first name in the subject line.

Scan to open the Future Makers Lab Padlet

Day One Done

You designed your own object, sent it to a real 3D printer, and took the controls of a drone, all in one day. Tonight it prints, and tomorrow you start engineering for the sky. Nice work, maker.

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