Sunset Village Learning Center holds 3-D pen workshop

On Nov. 3, the Sunset Village Learning Center hosted a 3-D pen workshop featuring colorful 3Doodler pens. 3Doodler pens are 3-D printing pens that allow freehand creations by spitting heated plastic. Funded by the UCLA Office of Residential Life and UCLA Core Program Funding, this will be the learning center’s first event related to 3-D technology.

 

WATCH: How 3-d pens work

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Zhou: On Nov. 3, 2015, the Sunset Village Learning Center will host a 3-D pen workshop featuring colorful 3Doodler pens. Funded by the UCLA Office of Residential Life and UCLA Core Program Funding, this will be the learning center’s first event relating to 3-D technology.

KHAY: The 3-D pen is essentially, just imagine a 3-D printer minus the programming. It is a pen that spits out the plastic and allows you to draw 3-D images that hold in a 3-D shape.

Zhou: That was Veasna Khay, a third-year life sciencelife science is not a major student and resident technology supervisor. He and his colleague Kristen Lee, a fourth-year psychobiology major, are the student masterminds behind the 3-D Pen Extravaganza workshop.

LEE: We set up 3-D pens for them, and let them use 3-D pens and create whatever they wish. For people who don’t feel comfortable creating something freehand, the website has templates that they can follow.

Zhou: The Office of Residential Life presents the 3-D Pen Extravaganza workshop through the learning centers on the hill. Managing producer Steve Griem recounts the core ideas behind the 3-D pen program.

GRIEM: The Office of Residential Life makes funding available for programmatic efforts. We have funding that is part of the learning center, there is also CPF, which is Core Program Funding that also helps support programs created by the learning centers as well as other programs that take place across the campus on the hill.

The learning center consultants are student programmers that are part of the learning center team with ORL, the design is to bring innovative programs in the learning centers which we feel is a convenient setting and access to technology that we think they will be using in the upcoming years.

Zhou: Resident technology supervisor Michael Brown notes the anticipation and excitement for the 3Doodler pen’s UCLA debut.

BROWN: I have yet to see somebody actually use this 3Doodler pen. So we are excited to kind of be the first people on the hill, maybe on the campus to do so. And I think I think it spreads a giant sense of excitement for what we are doing here in the learning center.

Zhou: But at $99 per pen, one big question looms: How will students use these things?

LEE: With the 3-D printer, it is kind of out of reach for a typical UCLA student, such as cost and usability. But with the 3-D pen it is super user-friendly, it is within the price budget of UCLA student I feel.

Zhou: Not only reasonably priced, the pens are also great tools for student learning.

GRIEM: The pen is accessible, because the students in the arts, architecture and the life sciences that will be using this technology to create products that will be used in all those different areas in the future. The students may not on their own initially have access to it, so (we are) giving them to chance to have exposure to it and then make the decision at a relative economic cost to see if they want to purchase it themselves.

Zhou: With the 3Doodler pens fresh out of the boxes and ready to run, the learning center is currently brainstorming ways to give students access to the 3Doodler pens.

BROWN: We are currently working on how we will make this accessible to students. We want to kind of go through the learning curve and the nuances around it so we can properly service it so if we have breakdowns like things of those nature so we would be prepared.

Zhou: The learning center will also seek student opinions and see where and how do students want access to these products.

Zhou: But after all these preparations, how will the supervisors know if the program was successful?

KHAY: So how we judge whether an event is successful isn’t by attendance or anything. Hopefully after this event, students will walk away being excited for the 3-D pen. Wanting to maybe purchase it for themselves.

LEE: For us, we emphasize quality over quantity. If that one student was able to engage and experience something they wouldn’t encounter on their typical day, then I feel that the learning centers we did their job.

Zhou: Transforming 2-D imaginations into 3-D realities, the brand new 3Doodler pens are a colorful addition to the student learning centers. For Daily Bruin Radio, this is Connie Zhou.