Printing the Moon

The primary aim of this project is to deliver a workshop to schools based around the concepts of space, data and 3D printing. The goal is for school pupils to print parts of the moon and then use these physical objects to make simple measurements of lunar dimensions, akin to a standard first year university experiment using shadow data from lunar photographs.

The workshop will explore a range of topics, from the lunar history, lunar exploration, lunar surveying and the role of satellites, but at its core will be the use of real satellite data from NASA and exploring how this can be manipulated into a form that can be printed out. The goal is to bring the excitement and wonder of space into the classroom as a physical object.

The impact will be to deepen pupils understanding of space and space technology, and to bring them into contact with disruptive technology, 3D printing, that will give them new skills and experiences that will be beneficial across the school curriculum (specifically the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence in the context of this proposal). We simply want to make space a less ephemeral thing that exists beyond our reach and show that space objects have form and that space technology can be used to probe this, giving us rich new understanding of how our solar system, how our Universe operates.

The primary contacts in the schools we have partnered with (St. Johns, Dundee; Websters, Kirriemuir; Auchmuty, Glenrothes) are physics teachers. The Scottish physics teachers have an enviable networking resource called "SPUTNIK" which has significant use by teachers throughout Scotland and we will look to disseminate workshop material through this mechanism. All workshop materials will be freely available to any teachers who request them. Where schools do not have 3D printers then we will work with the schools to either provide printing access on site, or by taking designs and printing them in Dundee.

We will also make use of teacher networking resources such as the sptr.net website (Scottish Physics Teaching Resources), our local STEMnet partners at the Dundee Science Centre. Information about the workshop and learning materials will be incorporated onto a website at the University of Dundee and advertised through communication networks such as social media (where a large community of scientists, educators and science communicators interact, e.g. twitter - hashtag #printthemoon, youtube and blogs, which the PI has significant experience of). We will also try and bring the workshop to national science festivals, teacher network meetings (for example the 'Stirling' conference for Scottish Physics teachers organised by the Institute of Physics in Scotland education committee) and Institute of Physics local area committees (which typically have educational remits, and teachers as committee members). We alos proposed that this might also make a good publication for a journal such as the 'American Journal of Physics' or the Institute of Physics' journal, 'Physics Education' or the American Equivalent, 'The Physics Teacher'.

We want all school children in Scotland, as part of this project to be able to print out and touch a piece of the moon. The Scottish element should not count against the proposal - we have good access to Scottish teacher networks and so wide spread dissemination is plausible, and so would hopefully reach tens of thousands of children, and help teachers explore these new and challenging parts of the curriculum. But as indicated above we have good plans to look for UK national and international dissemination of the workshop and the concept.

As part of an extension to this project we are in discussions with the University and other industrial and charity partners about a scheme to raise money to put 3D printers in all Dundee schools; Dundee City council have been to visit our rapid prototyping facility in Dundee, and are keen to support such an initiative to get wider access to this cutting edge technology for pupils to explore new aspects of engineering, science and design.